


Finisterre

by writerfan2013



Category: The Musketeers (2014)
Genre: Action/Adventure, Aramis has a secret love, Athos is dark and moody, Athos obviously needs to unburden himself and find new hope, Constance is feisty, D'Artagnan is impulsive but still effective, F/M, I make no apology for original characters since they are needed for The Plot, Modern day musketeering, My two year old epic!, Romance, This came out longer than I expected, s
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-14
Updated: 2017-06-19
Packaged: 2018-01-15 16:54:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 36
Words: 47,567
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1312282
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/writerfan2013/pseuds/writerfan2013
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>D'Artagnan finds strange messages leading him to Athos, Porthos and Aramis. One mysterious woman is definitely an enemy, but Athos cannot decide about the other. Aramis is in love and D'Artagnan longs for action. Adventure, friendship and romance. AU! I mean, *completely* AU present-day Musketeering. Featuring everybody.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Anglezarke

  ****

**Lancashire, UK, 6th March. 05:30.**

The man on the bridge was about thirty, lean and serious with dark hair trailing down over the collar of his scuffed brown leather jacket. His beard straggled unevenly around the scar which crossed his mouth, his eyes reflecting too the hurt of some old injury. His pale skin and delicate hands lent him an aristocratic look, and his poise was that of a man who might equally dance - or fight.

He neither relished nor dreaded either idea, treating each new duty with the same calm competence.

The bridge itself suggested battle: a hundred feet long, and narrow, it constrained a dam at the end of an enormous reservoir. On one side, chill dark water slapped against the rough-hewn stones of the bridge. On the other, that same grey granite dropped away in a sharp sloping wall punctured by copper spouts, and streaked with moss and lichen where the outfall trickled away.

Athos felt inside his jacket for his pistol. It was there, heavy against his heart, beating in time, reminding him always that death followed life, with only work in between.

A whisper in his ear made him lean over the parapet and peer down into the valley.

"By the car park," came Aramis' voice in his earpiece, and Athos took out a small scope and sighted through it.

He saw a man, slightly built and dressed in the same dark denim and worn leather as himself, leaning against the Tourist Information sign at the edge of the forest and near the shore of another square-ended lake.

Aramis raised his gloved hand to Athos and Athos felt that slight easing of tension which comes from knowing your friends are with you, and ready to take on your foes. For a moment he thought of another man, young, eager, a soldier more skilled than any Athos had known, but he swept the memory aside. Aramis and Porthos were his only brothers now.

Aramis stood with his hand raised, but Athos, silhouetted against the thick sky, would not wave back for fear of being seen by other eyes. He was not here for leisure. These reservoirs formed part of a country park, but also part of Britain's vital water supply chain. The weekends in summer brought crowds, and would have made today's task impossible.

But at six a.m. in March, the only strangers Athos had seen were some keen mums in lurid lycra, jogging behind three-wheeled buggies. The last of them gave him a hard look as she passed, and pulled the rain cover further over her buggy as if she feared his stern face would terrify her baby. She had dyed blonde hair which emphasised her sallow skin, and a lot of eye make up. This much Athos saw as she gave him her forbidding stare. He looked calmly back. The infant was safe from him. Did he really seem like a man who cooed into prams?

He hoped the women were all far away by now, as there was certain to be trouble.

"Porthos," he said softly, and the response came back at once. Athos turned towards the control tower above the reservoir, a rusted metal building jutting up from the north end of this bridge. Through its Plexiglass window Athos' scope picked out a third man, stocky and wearing a motorcyclist's bandana, hefting an experimental rifle in his hands.

"They're here!" Aramis' light voice could not conceal his excitement as the confrontation approached. "I see them. They're coming in through the woods. You were right, Athos, they mean to attack the reservoir, not the substation."

"Being right will be no comfort if we can't stop them," Athos said.

"We're ready for them," came Porthos' gruff tones. "They owe us a fight after what they did to Treville."

Athos' mouth twitched. "Hush. They'll be on us in moments."

Aramis said, breathless in Athos' earpiece as he climbed the path up to the bridge, "There's something else. They're not on foot."

Athos whirled round, expecting armoured vehicles on the bridge.

Aramis laughed. "This will be interesting. They're on horseback."

And even as Athos absorbed this news, six men on six sweating horses broke out of the forest and thundered across the bridge towards him.

* * *

The horsemen made for the watchtower. Athos stood between them, gun drawn, outnumbered but calm as always.

"Stop!" he called. "We know your plan. We are ahead of you in everything."

The leader slowed as he neared Athos, his horse lifting its hooves in high, nervous steps. Athos dodged aside, and the leader turned, he and his horse presenting a sideways profile to the watchtower. Athos smiled.

The rider scowled, saying, "We heard great things of you, the special soldiers, the so-called elite. Yet we overran you yesterday and your captain lies dead."

"Your plan won't work," said Athos, sighting at the group over the muzzle of his gun. "And Treville lives."

Behind the group, his boots making no noise on the bridge, Aramis crept up, gun ready.

"He's alive?" The leader frowned, then shrugged.

"Unlike you," said Athos, and a rifle shot whistled past him and struck the leader full in the chest. He was thrown back, and slumped in his saddle. Athos fired at the second man in the group as Aramis took out the rear two in rapid succession.

Porthos stood at the door of the watchtower, rifle in hand, smirking at the surprise inflicted on the would-be terrorists.

Athos pulled the wounded riders to the ground, searching their pockets, answering their struggles with punches if they tried to resist. "Nothing," he exclaimed. "No toxin, no bioweapon. No proof!"

One rider still remained, wheeling round on his horse, which reared and whinnied. A green saddlebag bulged against the animal's side.

Athos, still crouching, ducked the flying hooves. "The bag!" he said. "We need that bag." He scrambled to his feet and sprinted after the rider.

Aramis was dodging between riderless, panicking horses. The fallen men lay on the bridge, screaming. The last rider was turning, ready for his escape.

"I can't shoot," Porthos said from his vantage point. "-I'll hit one of you."

Athos frowned, sprang forward and grabbed at the reins of the desperate horse. The rider aimed his weapon, point blank at Athos's face, and Athos gazed up at him, unblinking, his hand on the horse's neck.

He saw the kill readying itself in the man's eyes, that removal of all feeling which must come before such a terrible deed. He grasped the green saddlebag and wrenched at it, thinking, if this is my last act, it is doing what I must do.

He heard Porthos and Aramis yell a simultaneous, horrified, "No!"

Athos cast the bag away. The rider flailed at him and then regained his aim.

And a dyed-blonde woman in bright sports gear pounded up and flung a sack of orange powder at Athos, yelling, "No fracking at Anglezarke!" as the gun went off.

* * *

**Author's note:**  I hope you like the start of my twenty-first century Musketeers imagining. I am doing this for fun so will take parts of Dumas, parts of BBC and my favourite, totally making it up as I go. Chapter Two is done too, with D'Artagnan discovering strange messages and that his charms are greater even than he supposed. Let me know what you think, good or bad: I am very thick-skinned and feedback of all kinds is always welcome. -Sef

 


	2. Milady

**Bristol City Council IT department, 6th March. 10:13.**

D'Artagnan frowned. His PiP music stream was blasting Woodkid into his ear and the priority incident screen was beeping, but neither was what troubled him.

The problem was with was his app. Truly his, created by him, productised and launched in the Play store and later for iPhone. PiP was a music service which snatched at the gaps in data transactions and filled them with music, stitching all the spare bandwidth together to provide, in effect, a free music stream. And PiP was infected.

His phone rang bleakly and he ignored it. Emails about the priority call flashed up on one of his monitors. D'Artagnan pressed Delete with his left hand while scrolling through code on his phone with his right.

It was like a virus, its rotten threads woven through the tracelogs of PiP activity. But it was a message.

Someone had hopped into the stream that his app was snatching, and was appending messages of their own.

Well, this explained why sound quality had been suffering.

The interloping data wasn't even encrypted. Cheeky beggars. He tapped the message.

Words appeared on his phone screen.  _Anglezarke. Six six six hundred. Brokenstone. Eight one six hundred. Dogleap. Eighteen twenty nine hundred. Finisterre. Nineteen TBC six hundred._

They made no sense. They were nonsense words. They were not his words, that was the point.

He had often thought of expanding PiP to include messaging, but he just hadn't had the time. Shifts at the council's IT department ate into his nights and weekends. Trying to find a place of his own so he could stop kipping on his mate's sofa, occupied most of the rest. His only hobbies were PiP, and fantasizing about a job with some element of excitement.

He squinted at the messages. Brokenstone. What was that? It rang a bell with him, but from where?

Google is your friend in these situations. A moment's search confirmed that Brokenstone was two things: the training centre for civil servants, and an award for outstanding public service.

D'Artagnan remembered now. One of his travelling friends had been on sabbatical from some lowly job in Whitehall, and had reminisced drunkenly about a girl encountered during graduate training at Brokenstone. The girl had  _eyes like liquid agate, hair as black as jet, attitude cold as a stalactite_. The guy had been a keen amateur geologist. And single.

One day D'Artagnan might meet a girl who brought him out in a rash of mineral-inspired poetry, but it had not happened yet.

At last the priority call stopped beeping and he could think.

He leaned back in his chair, making it creak, and stretched his legs out. One bonus of this job was the casual dress code. Faded jeans and mock vintage T shirts were de rigueur. D'Artagnan also favoured a brown leather bomber jacket and brown round-toe boots. It lent him a more mature look and was popular with the ladies. -Probably.

Think. Brokenstone. Whitehall. There was the number of the beast in that message as well. None of that was good. The whole thing was so weird, so cryptic, it gave him a chill.

He pushed off from his desk and shot across the carpet tiles to the corner desk of his colleague and also, currently, his landlord, Trace. "Take a look at this."

Trace was older, in his thirties at least, and an ex-something or other. He was forever on about his previous job in some secret government unit, but whenever D'Artagnan asked him about it, Trace would just tap his nose and say it was Official Secrets Act stuff.

Now he took D'Artagnan's phone and peered at it. "It's pinching the bandwidth your app likes to pinch. Someone's beating you at your own game." He handed back the phone.

D'Artagnan pushed it back. "Look at it. It's not just data that's piggybacking onto mine. It's a coherent message. A series of messages. And it mentions Brokenstone, and Anglezarke. What's Anglezarke?"

Trace looked again, sighing as if this was taking him away from vital he always claimed he'd taken this council job for a quiet life, and D'Artagnan knew that this was the most interesting thing which had happened all month.

As he looked, Trace's expression changed from skeptical to alarmed. "Anglezarke," he muttered. "Can I hang onto your phone for a mo?"

This was a little like asking D'Artagnan if he could spare his right arm, but reluctantly it was agreed.

The supervisor was prowling at the far side of the room. D'Artagnan and Trace instinctively ducked their heads but too late. The department manager loomed over D'Artagnan.

"D'Artagnan! How many times have I told you - what's this?"

His supervisor's face reddened and the entire department heard the roar of outrage.

"Using council time for your own ends! Abusing council property! Failing to answer a priority red call in the contracted time!"

"I think this is important," D'Artagnan began. "PiP -"

"Music! Now this is the end, D'Artagnan. You are sacked!"

Ten minutes later D'Artagnan was on the street in his coat, stuffing a crumpled letter of dismissal into his pocket, and still frowning at his phone.

* * *

The Rose and Crown emptied out after the lunchtime rush, and D'Artagnan was the only person left in the public bar. Without his phone he had little sense of the time but he was sure Trace was late. A few long-lunchers were visible behind the frosted glass on the saloon bar, but that was it. Tuesday afternoon, and all Bristol was back at work. All Bristol, that was, except D'Artagnan .

He abandoned the glass he had been nursing for the last half hour, and stepped out onto the pavement -

Just as three men were putting the finishing touches to a sound beating of Trace.

"Hey!"

D'Artagnan waded in. Three years living in the wilder parts of the Mediterranean and Near East had lent him some useful and underhand skills. The attackers, little realising his personal interest, were taken by surprise. D'Artagnan handed one a fist in the eye, the next a boot in the gut, and the third, who had Trace by the throat, several strikes in a place which left him unable to continue, and probably, unable to continue his genetic line.

Others from the pub had emerged now and were dialling the police. D'Artagnan called for assistance with holding down the assailants while he tended to Trace.

The ambulance arrived and Trace was loaded onto a stretcher. He called D'Artagnan's name weakly. D'Artagnan leaned in, holding his friend's bloodied hand. "Athos," Trace said. "Get Athos."

"Who's Athos?" D'Artagnan asked. "Where is he?"

"Louis," said Trace.

"We need to go," said the paramedic strapping in Trace's trolley.

"Where's my phone?" D'Artagnan asked, and Trace held it out to him.

The doors slammed, the ambulance wailed away, and D'Artagnan was left in need of another pint.

* * *

He paid the barman with the last of his cash. Jobless, where would the next money come from? "Keep the change," he said automatically, and then regretted it.

The barman leaned in close. "Cheers mate. And you've got to let that girl buy you a drink, she's been giving you the glad eye since you flattened those blokes."

D'Artagnan turned his head. A dark haired woman with striking green eyes and red lips was standing by the bar, scrolling through her phone and smirking. As D'Artagnan looked across she lifted her gaze and met his eye, and smiled.

D'Artagnan felt his face tingle. Her eyes - her eyes were amazing. A beautiful clear green. And the rest of her was pretty stunning as well.

Finally. A woman worthy of a geological simile?

"Good luck," said the barman, and winked.

D'Artagnan hesitated. He had a lot to do. He was now jobless, therefore imminently homeless, plus his mysterious messages and having to find out this Athos.

On the other hand -

The woman at the bar raised her glass to him and blinked slowly. It was like a reverse eyelash flutter: coy and demure replaced with challenging and confident.

D'Artagnan got up and went to the bar. "Do I know you?" he asked, and the woman lay her hand on his arm.

"Not yet," she said.

* * *

He'd never had a day like it. First the stuff at work, then Trace and his talk of gun toting pylon guardians, and then -

The woman was called Milady. "My sisters are Queenie and Contessa," she laughed, joining D'Artagnan at his table and shrugging the red cashmere cardigan from her shoulders, revealing ivory skin. She wore a silk scarf around her throat, and its presence emphasised the nakedness of her collarbone and somehow drew the eye down to her low-cut sheer black blouse, and her cleavage.

D'Artagnan tore his eyes away. They had had a couple of drinks and it was difficult to be discreet, especially as Milady was being so bold. "So, what are you doing here?"

"Meeting a friend," she said. She twinkled at him. "And I think that friend is you."

It should not work, but it did. Her hand was on his knee and her sweet perfume wafted warm from her skin toward him. "My place?" he suggested, unable to believe his luck, and she just smiled.

His place was a spot on Trace's sofa, not conducive to seduction but Milady did not mind. D'Artagnan deadlocked the front door to prevent unwanted interruptions. Milady wound her arms about his waist and breathed a kiss into his ear.

They crashed onto the sofa and undressed more rapidly than D'Artagnan ever had in his life. In seconds, it seemed, they were naked, laughing and wrestling for dominance as D'Artagnan's sleeping bag escaped to the carpet and the afternoon wore to evening.

Finally D'Artagnan slept, exhausted by the day's events and strenuous exertions in the satisfaction of Milady.

He woke to a frantic banging on the front door and the room was dark. D'Artagnan's keys lay on the doormat. D'Artagnan struggled into his jeans and stumbled to unlock the door. Milady was gone and so, D'Artagnan realised, was his phone.

 


	3. Bright hazel sky

The world was sunset orange.

Athos spluttered and wiped at his eyes with his sleeve. He was on the floor and he could see nothing. Rain spattered his face. He heard hooves, clattering all about, and boots scuffling, and a female voice saying furiously, "Take your hands off me, you thugs!" and strangely, the whisper of the wind in the forest, a presence like nature itself reminding him it was there.

He was not shot. His brain gathered pace. Not shot, horse running free, the rider must be -

The leather of his sleeve scraped a chunk of gunge from his eyes. The scene faded from orange to dawn-grey and Athos could see:

Aramis had the blonde powder-hurling woman by the arms and was restraining her politely but firmly. She kicked and struggled and he only smiled apologetically.

Porthos was nursing his fist, crouched on the ground beside the prostrate form of the rider who had threatened Athos.

"You killed them! You killed them so you can carry on your evil rape and pillage of our precious Earth!" The struggling woman was gasping, sobbing, tears streaking her heavy make up, her voice cracking.

"Madam," said Aramis, "you are under a misapprehension-"

"He broke my bloody hand," said Porthos, scowling in disbelief at the felled rider. "His fat jaw broke my bloody hand."

"Murderers!" panted the woman, kicking at Aramis.

Athos sat, then slowly stood. A paper sack spilled bright orange powder onto the ground. The buggy which had carried the sack lay on its side some distance away. "You threw paint at me," he said to the woman. "Why?"

She shook her head in defiance. Athos gestured, and Aramis reluctantly released the girl. Athos raised his eyebrows in reminder of his question.

"To stop you hurting that man," she said, "much good it did." She had a warm local twang to her voice, the flattening of vowels and that dry Lancashire edge which lent humour to even the darkest situations.

Athos glanced at the unconscious rider on the floor. " _That man_  was holding a gun in my face," he said. "Yet you were defending him?"

The woman flushed. "He was here on the same mission as me," she said, lifting her chin.

Athos regarded her.

"Prevention of you drilling for shale gas," she said primly.

Athos considered this. Lancashire was the subject of various proposals for shale drilling, but none were near these reservoirs. "And this?" He moved his fingers slightly, indicating the scattered orange powder.

"The colour our drinking water will be if fracking goes ahead."

"Right," said Porthos in a scathing tone, but Athos held up his hand. The girl was sincere. She was wrong, but she did not know it. That was interesting.

"Who are you?" he asked her.

She just shook her head.

"Get the clean-up team," Athos instructed Porthos. "This has been a disaster." Porthos pulled out his phone.

"Early intelligence is no guarantee of success," Aramis said sadly. He began to check the fallen men with unwilling hands.

"We are not here in any capacity related to shale gas," Athos told the woman. "We are here to prevent a crime, not perpetrate one. Speaking of which -" He looked around. "Dammit, where's that horse?"

The beast was trotting towards the trees. "Catch it!" said Athos.

"Me? You're the one went to a posh school," said Porthos.

"My medical skills are needed here," said Aramis.

Athos cursed, and gave chase.

Behind him he heard running feet. The girl was catching up with him even as the horse, and its bag, were escaping. "It's getting away!" she cried, and Athos gritted his teeth and pounded after the horse.

The animal was spooked by losing its rider, and the gunfire, and probably the nervous tension of all the humans. It was skittering here and there along the bridge, uncertain about the massive drop on one side, and the expanse of glittering water on the other, but heading for the trees.

Athos called to it, trying to sound calm and reassuring, which was hard when running flat out and with an eco warrior getting under one's feet. "What are you doing?" he grunted at her, making a swipe for the reins. He missed.

"Helping." She caught the reins and ran, the horse's belly at her side.

"No, you're not." Athos saw the danger the same moment she did - the horse thrashing its head, wanting free of this strange girl holding its reins, dipping its nose for a full-on bolt -

Athos leapt. Landed on the horse by a miracle of long training and ancient muscle memory, and as the girl stumbled, scooped her up too. His arm screamed but he had the reins and was aiming the horse for the open grassland at the shore of the upper lake, away from the treacherous forest.

The girl at least had the sense to cling on, her arms locked around him. She moved with the horse, though, he noticed. She had ridden before. So did she realise he had almost certainly saved her life? Did she care, or was she as indifferent as he?

"So what's in the bag?" she asked, so calmly he would have thought her brainless but for the bite in her voice.

"Proof," he said. "I hope."

It was not his habit to joke whilst at work, not with civilians, but the girl laughed. He scowled and brought the horse to a shivering halt, leaning onto its neck to comfort it. Humans have motivations and desires they can keep secret, impulses they can ignore. Horses have only training and instinct.  _Perhaps I am only a horse, now_.  _Perhaps that is why I no longer care._

He patted the beast's hot neck, and murmured to it.

The girl let go of his waist and slid to the ground. "Let's see this proof, then."

She thrust her hand towards the saddlebag. The horse caught the sudden motion and reared, knocking the girl off her feet. Athos dragged its head round and forced it away, hooves throwing up gritty sand from the shore. "Porthos! Aramis!"

He stayed on the horse, keeping it clear of the others as Porthos retrieved the saddlebag and held up a clutch of stainless steel canisters taped to a small boxed electrical circuit. Aramis got hold of the reins and tied the horse to a tree, looking disgusted.

Athos sprang down. Enemy captured, the no fatality protocol followed, proof of malicious intent obtained - on paper the mission was not so bad.

But the enemy had known the Musketeers would be here. The eco group had, too, and had somehow been recruited against them. And Treville still lay in hospital, out of action for who knew how long?

The whole thing was wrong, and Athos needed to get home, find silence, and think.

Aramis and Porthos exchanged a look, the one Athos recognised as concern for him, mixed with male reluctance to have a big talk, or any talk, about feelings. He was grateful for their reticence. He didn't need help. He was fine.

The girl lay on the ground, stunned. She was not hurt. Bruised, probably. She would survive to be questioned by the clean-up team, and then, most likely, by Treville himself. Treville had little tolerance for interference in his missions, especially not from people aligned with their enemies. Treville would adhere to the rules, but he would not be gentle with the girl.

Luckily she appeared to be the type who could give as good as she got. When conscious, anyway. Athos peered at her. She was all right.

Her face was white in the chill rain and her yellowish hair was... sliding off her head. Athos frowned. He slipped off his right glove to touch the girl's fringe, and was repelled by static in the nylon fibres. A disguise. A mum uniform, even as he wore his soldier's outfit. He plucked the wig from her head, revealing light brown hair cut close around her face. Against her natural hair colour, her skin looked fair instead of pasty, and the drizzle was washing away the last of her caked make-up. She had freckles.

As Athos watched, she opened her eyes. The increasing daylight reflected in them - bronze clouds in a bright hazel sky.

There was protocol to follow. "What's your name?" he asked.

"Eve Ninon Kirkland." She blinked, struggled to rise. He shook his head and she lay back, wincing as the impact of the fall made itself known.

Athos stood. The clean-up team would soon be here. There would be a dissection of everything which had gone wrong. For himself, he wanted to know the source of the intelligence which had placed the Musketeers where their enemies could find them and made targets of innocently-motivated civilians.

It would be a long and dispiriting day, and behind it all Athos scented the pristine, righteously perfumed fingers of the Cardinal.

"Hey," said Eve, and he glanced back over his shoulder. "Who are you?" She was propped on one elbow, squinting against the pain, yet her tone was firm. Despite her slight frame and ill-conceived politics, she was strong, and stubborn, like -

He blinked. Focused on the girl who was here and breathing. "You may call me Athos," he said, and strode away.


	4. Unblinking confidence

Bristol, 6 March, late afternoon

Where do you look for a man with only a name? D'Artagnan thought himself pretty handy with Google, but after a supper of coffee and chocolate digestives - the only food in the flat, as neither D'Artagnan nor Trace were skilled housekeepers - he had succeeded only in establishing that Athos was a picturesque place in Greece. Holidays could be booked instantly for very reasonable prices, apparently.

He was contemplating putting a Chinese takeaway on his credit card when the front door juddered under a battery of hefty knocks.

He opened it, to see a man he vaguely recognised as Trace's landlord, and a police officer in a high vis vest and black uniform. "Can I help you?"

"I told you," said the landlord to the policeman, ad pointing at D'Artagnan. "Subletting!"

Ah. This was awkward. He was unofficial and Trace had obviously never cleared it with the flat owners. "I'm just staying a couple of nights," D'Artagnan said. "I'm a friend of -"

"Are you D'Artagnan?" asked the police officer. D'Artagnan nodded. "Then I'm afraid I have to ask you to vacate these premises immediately. You were seen getting involved in the fracas outside the Rose and Crown this lunchtime. There's been a complaint from another resident of these flats, that a criminal was seen taking refuge here."

"And subletting," added the landlord nastily.

"But -"

Something was wrong here. 'Taking refuge?' 'Involved in a fracas?' The phrases just did not ring true.

D'Artagnan caught sight of the policeman's jacket. The badge on the breast, though shiny and silver, was a little on the small side, and seemed to be made of plastic. Also, it read Toytown Constabulary.

"I'll just get my coat, officer," said D'Artagnan, then slammed the front door, and ran into the flat.

He snatched up his leather jacket, and Trace's outdated phone, and wrenched open the French doors into what the landlord no doubt called the balcony: a narrow shelf outside the living room with a twenty foot drop to the communal garden. D'Artagnan hesitated, then heard the landlord's key in the door. "Bye then," said D'Artagnan , and vaulted over the rail.

He knew enough not to jump straight off, but clung by his fingers to the bottom edge, to give himself less of a fall. All the same the impact, when it came, was enough to jar his legs and spine and leave him stunned on the ground in the dim late afternoon light.

"There he is!" cried the landlord, leaning over the balcony.

D'Artagnan dragged himself to his feet and stumbled away.

 

* * *

 

Get Athos, Trace had said. There was obviously a connection to D'Artagnan's phone, and therefore to PiP, and the messages. Presumably also, to Milady, since she had seen the end of the struggle at the Rose and Crown, and then, observing that the phone was with D'Artagnan, contrived to get it herself. But who was Athos, and how was D'Artagnan to find him? What revenge could he even wreak on someone with resources like that?

D'Artagnan went to the hospital, but Trace was in intensive care and could not be visited.

He googled on Trace's phone. The tiny screen made it awkward, and a passing nurse gave D'Artagnan such a glare that he flinched. "Mobiles should be switched off," she said.

D'Artagnan tried a winning smile. "I only want to -"

"Outside!" said the nurse.

He went.

The nearest place with a reasonable signal was the station. D'Artagnan loitered on the concourse. Above him great brick arches soared to enclose the array of tracks and platforms; beside him, pasty sellers proffered gravy-scented genuine Cornish delights. D'Artagnan ignored this and used the miniature keyboard to type in search terms.

How had Trace ever used this phone? It could barely get the internet. If D'Artagnan had it much longer he'd be holding it up at arm's length and asking young people to read the display for him.

Aha. There was a thought.

Trace was pretty aged. If Athos was someone from Trace's past, chances were that he was ancient too. What do old folk do online? Facebook.

The Athos page came up straight away. Not a person page, a group. _We Heart Athos_ , and posts from many young-girl names.

Hmmn. D'Artagnan clicked on a post from the group itself, which affected a more sober tone. Is this Athos? it asked, and linked to a news article about masked men breaking into a power plant.

D'Artagnan frowned. Around him, seagulls yelped and swooped down to snap at abandoned chips. The tannoy blared indistinct platform alterations. It was surreal to be searching for Trace's attackers, and a connection to the messages in PiP, surrounded by such mundane sights and sounds.

There was a link to video. He tapped it, and saw footage from a surveillance camera, monochrome but high definition. The location and datestamp in the bottom right corner had been roughly pixellated and was unreadable. D'Artagnan leaned in, blocking out distraction.

The scene was of a night-time, floodlit brick wall. In front of it was scrubby grass and litter. Beyond it were an army of metal boxes, each the size of a Ford Transit. The boxes had wires linking them to each other, and to a control tower just visible on the right hand side of the view.

As D'Artagnan watched, three shadows grew on the patchy grass, and resolved as three men in dark clothes, with bulky jackets, boots and belts suggestive of tools or weapons. The video footage froze and a word flashed up in extravagant font: _Musketeers_!

Then the footage rolled again. A river of Bristol commuters jostled past D'Artagnan on their way to the London train, but now he was hooked. He peered at the screen.

The first man moved with the unblinking confidence of a cat, springing onto the wall, heedless of the dark, and holding out his hand to his companion. This slighter figure climbed gracefully from the shoulders of the third man who stood staunch, taking the weight of his friend as if it were nothing.

Light from the watchtower striped the side of the first man's cheek and mouth, throwing his scar into relief.

The first two men walked the top of the wall and their companion kept pace at ground level. The image on the screen dimmed and faded, brightened again into a view from a different camera, high up. On the watchtower itself, perhaps? D'Artagnan did a quick screencap and set an image search running while he watched the rest of the footage. Sure, any amateur could do what he was doing, but that didn't make it foolish.

The men on the screen moved swiftly into a fenced area filled with complicated wiring and substation paraphernalia. The slightest of the men leapt down and opened the gate. It took him no time, yet D'Artagnan had to assume the gate had been locked. The slender figure gave a careless wave as if acknowledging his own greatness, then was stilled by the leader's sharp gesture. The man outside now joined them and they stood back to back, scanning the scene.

There was a flicker on the screen and the camera wobbled.

All three men drew guns from their jackets.

The nearest substation began to spark. Two new, masked figures sprinted from the flare and were tackled to the ground by the leader of the three men. His friends sprang forward too.

A shot aimed at them went wide, seeming to outrage them, and then the three friends flattened the saboteurs with calm efficiency.

The film was grainy but D'Artagnan saw the leader pull out a handheld device and tap at it. The screen whited out for a moment as floodlights came on, and when it cleared, the three men, and the masked saboteurs, were gone.

D'Artagnan stared. These men were soldiers. There could be no mistaking the smooth coordination of a trained team. Yet why were soldiers sneaking into a place they were guarding? And what had happened to the masked men after the lights flared on?

He wandered around the concourse without seeing it, reading through the other posts on the page (none were as exciting) and following links to forums of endless speculation as to the location of this incident, the purpose of the attempted sabotage, and, most pressingly for many forumites, which of the men was Athos.

D'Artagnan snorted at this. He scrolled back to the footage's opening scene, and the first man poised on top of the perimeter wall, his scarred face and set expression speaking of cool capability. In D'Artagnan's mind there was no doubt. If any of these three were Athos, this was the man.

The trouble was that nobody knew anything about him, and the phone was too crap to bear much more googling.

D'Artagnan was frowning in irritation at this when another thought struck him. This was Trace's old phone. Trace had named his attacker with confidence - therefore he knew him personally. Therefore, the simplest way to find Athos -

D'Artagnan called up the contacts list on Trace's phone, and there it was. _Athos_ , and a London number. "I am such an idiot," he said out loud, and pressed Call.

"Louis Headquarters Carlton Place, what extension do you need?" A woman's voice, crisp and efficient.

"Is Athos there," D'Artagnan asked, feeling a fool.

A pause. "He's in a briefing right now, would you like to speak to someone else?"

"No. No, thank you. I'll try later."

D'Artagnan ended the call and stood clutching Trace's phone, his heart racing. As simple as that.

He searched for Carlton Place, and found it - an address in central London.

The tannoy announced a last chance to board, and D'Artagnan's head snapped up. He shoved the phone into his jacket, and sprinted for the London train.


	5. Anne, and Constance

London, Carlton Place, early evening, 6th March

D'Artagnan was walking against the tide. All around him men and women in drab coats hurried towards the station he had just left. Briefcases battered him and people having full-volume conversations into their mobiles scowled at him as he headed for Carlton Place.

When he found it, Carlton Place was an elegant cream building with four storeys, glossy black railings tipped with gold, and a broad set of shallow steps up to black double doors.

The street was a mix of similarly venerable houses and glassy new office blocks. Most had silver plaques beside their doors, bearing high-tech names. Carlton Place had a plaque too. It said simply LOUIS.

D'Artagnan did not have a detailed plan. He climbed the steps and hammered on the door.

* * *

 

Treville was not best pleased. His large, high-ceilinged office on the top floor of Carlton Place, usually an airy oasis where he could plan and supervise in silent calm, had been the scene of unwelcome revelations and angry recriminations all afternoon. At last he had dismissed the rest, leaving only the three men on whom the blame this time, as well as the glory, was heaped. Treville sighed.

Athos, Porthos and Aramis stood before him in varying attitudes of acceptance and defiance. Athos stood straight, his hands clasped behind his back, his face guarded but serene. Porthos glowered, legs planted squarely, arms folded. Aramis examined the fingernails on his right hand.

Treville was a man of fifty, an old soldier, and a founding member of the organisation. His short grey hair and crinkled eyes spoke of years of hard discipline and tough decisions. And here, with his best men before him and his own arm shattered in a sling, was another one.

"Someone knew we would be there," Treville said now. "The saboteurs knew, and enlisted help from the so-called..." he looked down at a paper on his desk, ".. Eco Viability group to prevent our defence of the facility."

"They were a distraction, nothing more," said Athos. "The mission was completed." He had been over and over this ground while the girl had been questioned. He had not been the one to interrogate her, which was a pity since he wanted some answers of his own.

"They didn't even know who the saboteurs were," said Porthos. "The girl thought they were part of her group."

"And that we were the interlopers," added Aramis.

"Yes," said Treville. "But the fact remains that while we spent weeks scouring surveillance data to discover that the next target would be Anglezarke, someone immediately knew that we had done so, and put measures in place to humiliate us."

"I know who I'd blame," said Porthos, glancing at Aramis and Athos.

Athos shook his head, but Aramis said, "We all know he wants to get this unit shut down. Subsume it into his own division."

"Yeah," said Porthos. "The Cardinal."

"Quiet!" said Treville sharply. "There is nothing to link Charles Ritchley with this business. He runs his team, I run mine, and that's all there is to it." He gestured meaningfully around the room. Sparsely furnished as it was, Athos would have thought bugs would be detected at once, but Treville was right. It was best to remain cautious, when two departments, with overlapping remits and special expertise in surveillance, were at war.

Porthos began to protest, but then the doors at the far end of the room opened, and he fell silent.

A woman entered with measured steps. All the men watched her approach.

She was of medium height, thirtyish,svelte, and blonde. She wore a pale blue dress of raw silk - modestly cut, but fitted closely to her neat figure under a simple coat of the same sky-blue silk. Her hair was coiled on her head in a style which might have aged her, but which looked instead regal and timeless.

A diamond brooch glittered on her lapel, and more gems shone in her hair. Her cream shoes made precise strikes as she crossed the wooden floor to Treville's desk.

All the men held themselves a little straighter, a little taller. Anne Osterley was the minister in charge of this department, and she knew how to make an entrance.

"A pleasure to see you ma'am," said Treville, climbing to his feet. "Can I offer you a seat?"

Anne gave a small smile. "Thank you, Treville, but I think you need it more," she said, and her voice was melodic and sweet, younger than her eyes, which were tired. She looked at Athos, Aramis and Porthos. "Are these your - Musketeers?" Her mouth quirked at the three, casual by comparison in their worn leathers and workmen's boots, their hair trailing over their collars, Athos with a scarf tied at the open neck of his shirt, Aramis with a crucifix at his, and Porthos still sporting a bandana over his untamed hair.

"A nickname," said Treville. "A reference to an elite guard from long ago."

Anne walked in front of the three friends as they stood to attention.

She took particular notice, it seemed, of Athos, who remained unmoved as she passed close to him. Aramis breathed in floral Guerlain and held quite still as she paused in front of him and looked into his face, her eyes dark with interest.

"And will our elite guard be able to protect the UK's infrastructure against the terrorist attacks which my sources tell me are coming?" she asked softly.

"Yes, ma'am," said Athos, Porthos and Aramis at once.

"I hope so," said Anne. "I am relying on you." A shadow crossed her face as she added, "And so is my husband."

"Of course," said Treville. "Please tell the Prime Minister he can place every faith in us."

"I'll see him at the next cabinet meeting," said Anne. She cast her eyes over the musketeers once again, then turned on her heel and walked away.

"Cabinet meeting," said Porthos. "Won't she see him at dinner first?"

"Our minister keeps her work and personal life separate," said Treville. "As should we all."

"They barely speak," Aramis muttered to Porthos. "Well known fact."

"Ah." Porthos nodded. "One of those political marriages, eh."

"He's an oaf who appreciates neither brains nor beauty," said Aramis. His voice held a touch more bitterness than a comment on a senior colleague might be expected to merit.

"That's enough," said Athos. He shot them a severe look. "The Prime Minister pays our wages, and we are not here to gossip about our superiors."

Treville looked at his watch. "It's getting on. You all had an early start, and I know you've spent a lot of time debriefing. Let's call it a day."

He nodded at them, and they were dismissed.

"So," said Aramis as they descended the stairs to the bright atrium which lay at the heart of Carlton Place. "We have a mole."

"So it seems," said Athos. "Or we ourselves have been the subject of an attack."

They arrived in the foyer. Evening sunlight streamed through the glass roof to the white tiled floor. The facade of the Georgian house hid this clean modern space, which held a waiting area, coffee station, security turnstiles, and a Reception desk.

And at the Reception desk, there was an altercation.

Athos exchanged glances with the others, and as one they leaned against the coffee bar. The barista placed three espressos in front of them without being asked, and the Musketeers relaxed with their elbows back on the counter to watch the fun.

Porthos chuckled and nudged Aramis as the would-be visitor raised his voice to the impassive guard on Reception. "Not the way to charm."

"And you'd know, naturally."

Athos ignored the banter and watched curiously as the young man at the desk became more and more agitated.

The boy was perhaps twenty, maybe a year or two more, with the unruly hair and scruffy clothes of someone without a proper job. He wore leather and boots as if he expected any moment to ride a motorbike or scale a wall, but a glance at his hands showed he was more used to sitting behind a desk than participating in physical activity.

His voice, though, belied his unkempt appearance: it was well modulated, even refined. And his dark eyes spoke youthful fire and a determination Athos had not seen in a youth for a long time. If he squinted he could imagine that it was not this stranger, but another youngster who stood there, demanding entrance with furious passion...

He was staring, and the boy noticed and stopped. He fixed his gaze on the musketeers and a look of outrage settled over his face. The guard motioned him towards the exit, but instead the youngster cried, "You three!" and bounded over the turnstiles.

* * *

 

"Which one of you is Athos?" demanded D'Artagnan.

The men looked different indoors and in daylight. Under their leather jackets they wore shirts in various shades of blue and grey, no tie, and they each wore black twill trousers which were inconspicuous in the office but as robust as jeans. There was no sign of the tool belts or the weapons he had seen in the night-time raid footage.

They stood poised and alert like the soldiers D'Artagnan had seen in the video, however, and he strode over to them, sure of his accusation.

"Ay up," said Porthos, and gave Athos an amused grimace.

"I wonder what it can be," mused Aramis, tilting up his little cup to empty it. He placed it delicately on the counter, and smoothed his beard with thoughtful fingers.

"Are you Athos?" asked D'Artagnan.

"I am he," said Athos, peeling himself off the counter.

D'Artagnan saw that his earlier guess had been correct: Athos bore himself with the easy arrogance of the natural leader, and under his beard was a white scar. His eyes were mild but his mouth was a hard line.

"Prepare to lose what looks you have, Athos," said D'Artagnan, throwing off his leather jacket. "Maybe your teeth, maybe your nose, maybe some softer parts. Come on!"

He raised his fists and advanced towards Athos.

Athos cast a sideways glance at Aramis and Porthos, and shrugged off his jacket too. "And who are you?" Athos enquired with great indifference as the coat slithered to the floor. "If I must put you out of your misery, you should give me your name so I can let your parents know."

"My parents are dead. There's no one you need to call. And my name is D'Artagnan. Now are you going to fight?"

"Why?" Athos asked, calmly rolling up the ocean-grey sleeves of his shirt.

"For what you did to my friend Trace!" cried D'Artagnan, and darted to Athos to land a punch.

Athos dodged easily, and frowned. "I don't know anyone of that name."

"Well, he knows you. He named you, the last thing he did before the ambulance took him away." Athos aimed in his turn, missing by a hair, and D'Artagnan suddenly appreciated that his opponent was accustomed to violence. He drew breath and prepared to use everything he knew.

"I can't help what your friend said," said Athos, as the two circled each other, D'Artagnan throwing punches, Athos evading. "I think you have a case of mistaken identity -"

And then D'Artagnan landed the first strike, square on Athos' jaw with a force surprising from a slender boy. Athos drew back, feeling the jolt of the punch in his teeth and eyes, and under pretense of examining the damage, instead lifted his hand and caught D'Artagnan a good one on the nose, sending him reeling across the shiny floor, jeans scuffing the tiles.

Athos was after him in a moment but D'Artagnan recovered quickly and scrambled to his feet.

"Need any help?" offered Aramis.

"Not at the moment," said Athos, ducking D'Artagnan's fists.

"We'll just watch then," said Porthos. "This is better than Sky."

"And a lot better than paperwork," agreed Aramis.

They leaned against the bar, arms folded, and watched a surprisingly even fight between Athos and the newcomer. For every blow which struck D'Artagnan , he returned one to Athos. He was fast, and though he lacked technique, instinct appeared to be making up for it.

"Go home," said Athos as he wrestled free of an armlock and captured D'Artagnan instead.

"Not until you tell me why you attacked him! It's to do with the messages, isnt it," gasped D'Artagnan, escaping Athos' superior strength. He whirled around and caught Athos a blow in the midriff with his knee, sending Athos to the ground.

"I've done nothing," Athos said calmly, wiping blood from the cut to his jaw and getting up, fists raised once again.

"Your people hospitalized him!"

"This is ridiculous," said Athos.

"This is grievous bodily harm," said D'Artagnan. "A bit like what I'm going to do to you." He was sweating and dishevelled, nose bloodied, but anger kept him on his feet.

Porthos straightened up and moved closer. So did Aramis.

"Save your efforts for the real criminal," said Athos. "I am not him."

"Liar!" cried D'Artagnan. He scraped up one of the PiP messages from his battered brain. "This is about Anglezarke, isn't it? Don't lie to me!"

At this Athos froze, and D'Artagnan landed a cracking blow to his cheek.

Porthos and Aramis leapt in.

"Oh, now you want some?" said D'Artagnan, muffled under the rain of blows which now found their mark on him. "I knew Anglezarke would mean something to you -"

"What do you know?" demanded Athos. "Tell us! Why did you say that word?"

But D'Artagnan was sinking to the ground beneath a flurry of expert cuts and lunges, and could not answer.

"Oi!"

A shrill female voice rang out. "Leave him alone!"

"Oh god," said Aramis, holding D'Artagnan by the hair.

"Who let her in?" said Porthos.

"I said, let him go. What do you think this is, WWF? Stop that right now!"

Athos dragged D'Artagnan to his feet and stood, supporting him, as a dark-haired young woman in a blue polka dot dress and flip flops marched in. "Put him down!" she commanded. She pushed D'Artagnan's hair off his forehead and tutted. "If he's a visitor here, he's under my protection." She jabbed a finger at each of the others in turn, heedless of the fact that she stood lower than their shoulders.

"This man walked in here and attacked me," Athos said. "I was defending myself."

"And that takes three of you, does it?" She put her hands on her hips, glaring. D'Artagnan, his head drooping, saw that she had yellow nail varnish on her toes. He saw blood drip from his nose, and knew that his eye, too, was puffing up. He had definitely been losing the fight when this woman stepped in: Athos was merciless and methodical. D'Artagnan, accustomed to being the best in every situation, had never fought anyone like him.

"Come on, Constance," said Porthos in a conciliatory tone. "He was interfering in musketeer business."

Constance rolled her eyes. "Oh, in that case, by all means, bludgeon every stripling boy who walks in here."

"Hey!" said D'Artagnan.

Constance ignored him and went on. "Why should the law, or maybe common decency, apply to any of you?"

She glared at them until Aramis and Porthos lowered their gaze. Only Athos remained unmoved.

"I need to find out who attacked my friend," said D'Artagnan through a rapidly swelling lip. "And what Anglezarke is."

"Quiet! "Athos smothered D'Artagnan's words with his palm.

"We should take him to Treville," said Porthos to Athos.

"Agreed," said Athos. "Let's go."

They manhandled D'Artagnan towards the stairs.

"Wait a minute," said Constance. They paused. D'Artagnan lifted his head and saw that despite her strident tone, Constance had a kind face. She also had large blue eyes, and the most beautiful ivory skin he had ever seen. She gazed back at him as he noticed her full lips, graceful neck, and fetchingly buxom figure, especially her -

"You're fine," said Constance, clipping him round the ear. "All right. But remember: return him to me."

She stood shaking her head as the musketeers carried D'Artagnan away.


	6. Floating staircase

"What do you know about Louis?" demanded Treville. He was in a worse mood than ever. Firstly, he was back in his office instead of on his way home, secondly, his broken arm throbbed, and finally the musketeers were once more prowling around, their boots echoing on the bare boards in a way which Treville found maddening.

D'Artagnan suppressed a sigh. He had been brought to this room by force, he had no friends here and no clue what was going on. He had to at least try not to piss anybody off. "I know it's the name on the door," he said, immediately failing.

"Who told you where to find us?"

"This phone," said D'Artagnan, holding it out.

Athos lunged forward and took it. "My name," he said after a moment's scrolling. He raised his eyes to D'Artagnan. "Where did you get this?"

"I've been telling you. It belongs to my friend. The one who got beaten up. You know him. Trace." For a bunch of guys swanning round in leather and giving themselves code names, they were remarkably slow on the uptake.

All four men shrugged at the mention of Trace's name. Athos turned D'Artagnan 's phone over and over in his right hand, regarding D'Artagnan darkly.

"Listen," said D'Artagnan, "you all have assumed names, right? I guess Trace isn't what he was called at work. If I had my phone I could show you a picture of him -"

"Thought your phone was stolen," said Porthos, holding out his hand for Trace's ancient mobile. Athos tossed it to him, then paced the room, frowning.

"It was!"

"By a beautiful seductress," said Aramis.

"By a thief," said D'Artagnan. He thought of Milady, smouldering in her red dress, but set aside the memory. He was never going to see her again. He spread his hand for his phone, but Porthos threw it to Aramis instead.

"Can you access these messages you say told you about Anglezarke?" Athos asked, looping back to D'Artagnan.

"Give me a PC with web access and yes." He had been cut off from the world for most of the day. He assumed his own PC was now in the hands of the fake policeman in Trace's flat, or destroyed. If he was lucky he could still get at the PiP files in the cloud. "I just need access."

Athos glanced at Porthos.

"I'm not fetching her," Porthos said. "You go, Aramis. She likes you."

"She doesn't like anybody," said Aramis. He curled his lip as if this was a personal affront. "She has a _slight_ regard for Athos."

Athos pursed his mouth and stalked from the room.

D'Artagnan watched. "So what is Anglezarke?" he asked. "What's Louis?"

Aramis and Porthos looked at Treville.

Treville fixed D'Artagnan with a steady gaze. D'Artagnan stared back. "Licensed Operatives of Unified Infrastructure Security," said Treville. "We're part of MOD." He moved his head from side to side. "More or less."

"More when we need backup, less when we don't want to be slowed down," said Porthos. He winked at D'Artagnan. "Top secret. Now we've told you, we're going to have to kill you."

"And everyone you know," said Aramis with a menacing smile.

D'Artagnan widened his eyes. "Top secret? Security? You do know I just walked in here, right?"

"How far did you get?" Treville asked drily.

"Coffee machine," said Porthos.

"Hmmn," said Treville. "-Just out of interest. How long did it take Athos to stop him?"

"Actually," said Aramis, "longer than you'd think." He gave D'Artagnan a grudging smile. "And Athos had help."

"Interesting," said Treville.

"So what do you do?" D'Artagnan asked. "What's LOUIS for?"

"We are the defence against attacks on Britain's critical infrastructure," said Athos, returning. He placed a laptop on Treville's desk. "A hand picked service with special skills and powers to use lethal force if need be."

Special powers? D'Artagnan wrinkled his nose in disbelief.

Behind Athos the door opened again and there was the slap of foam rubber on wood. "They protect the pylons, bless," said Constance, and rolled her eyes. "Now, what am I giving you access to?"

Things moved rapidly once the PiP messages came into the equation. D'Artagnan felt himself vindicated.

The messages were sucked into Constance's system for analysis. "Finisterre," said Porthos. "I know that, what does that mean?"

Aramis bit his lip.

"The end of the world," said Athos.

"The analysts will work on it tonight," said Treville. "Now I'd better notify the Minister of this new development." He heaved a sigh. "She will be pleased we've uncovered this data. And then she will want action."

D'Artagnan thought it was a bit rich to describe it as uncovering data, when really all they had done was read what he brought to them. But there was an edge to the atmosphere at LOUIS, and he was starting to realise that downstairs he had escaped lightly with a bruised nose.

Constance carried off the laptop with its evidence of D'Artagnan's story, and also Trace's phone.

"Hey!" said D'Artagnan, chasing after her. "That's the only phone I've got!"

"Pity it's such a crap one, then," said Constance, stuffing it into a pocket in her sundress. "Now, what's happening with him?"

She gestured at D'Artagnan as if he were a misdelivered parcel.

"He stays," said Treville. "Firstly, he is our link to the security breach, and secondly, he found and entered this building with no more effort than catching a bus."

D'Artagnan touched his battered nose. "Not quite that easily," he said.

"Sure it was," said Porthos. "You never even paused at the turnstiles, just came straight over."

"I knew I was right," said D'Artagnan.

"Exactly," said Athos.

Treville narrowed his eyes. "And that's why I think I would like to hang onto you, at least for the duration of this mission. And it may be we have a use for you after that."

D'Artagnan blinked. A job? Here, in this weird hybrid high-tech, ancient-history building? With the guardians of pylons? "Right," he said.

Aramis clapped D'Artagnan on the shoulder. "The nerve to challenge Athos wins you some respect around here," he said.

"The stupidity to go through with it loses it again," said Porthos, but grinned.

Athos was staring at D'Artagnan with a peculiar, intense expression.

"Problem?" asked Treville.

"No," said Athos. But he continued to gaze at D'Artagnan until D'Artagnan had to look away.

"You are out of a job and homeless, did I understand that right?" asked Treville. D'Artagnan nodded. Also, he was now in London without money, a precarious state.

Treville pressed his lips together and drummed his fingers on his desk. "Well," he said after a few moments. "D'Artagnan, you'll stay with one of my people while we verify everything in your story. -Sort it out among yourselves," he added, waving away the dismayed looks from Athos, Porthos and Aramis. "We'll pick this up tomorrow but for now, dismissed."

Everyone trooped out, D'Artagnan eyeing the others warily.

There followed an impromptu conference in the marble stairwell outside Treville's office. D'Artagnan peered over the plump balustrade and saw that the stairs were freestanding, each tread jutting from the ornately plastered wall. It was giddying, given the age of this building, to see such a heavy structure with no prop. Behind him, Athos, Aramis and Porthos argued casually about his fate. In front of him, the floating staircase wound down towards the foyer, the steps supported by nothing except each other,

"He can't crash at mine," said Porthos. "No space."

"I have - study commitments," said Aramis. "It would be very disruptive to have a lodger -" Porthos snorted and Aramis glared at him.

"I live alone," said Athos.

"Oh for pity's sake," said Constance, and turned her bright gaze up to D'Artagnan. "It's easy," she said. "He can stay with me."

* * *

 

**Author's note:** Thanks for your feedback, I like to know what you think! Comments and suggestions are always welcome. -Sef


	7. Immune to people

Camden, London, 6th March, 8pm

Constance served casseroled lamb shank for dinner and frowned at the rather unpolished table manners of her new lodger. D'Artagnan was slouched in his chair, flicking through his (new) phone, in his faded T shirt and unnecessarily tight indigo jeans. His long legs were stretched out in front of him and as she studied him, he scratched his inner thigh and then went back to dabbing at his phone.

Classic single male, in other words. She was amazed he knew what a dining table was. Every meal would be eaten standing at the kitchen counter or out of takeaway boxes balanced on his chest as he slumped on the sofa. He looked like a man who was well versed in how to remove outer packaging and pierce film lid.

He had showered on arriving home though. That was good. His room was the so-called fourth bedroom in the attic, which had its own ensuite. It also had a view of last year's buddleia clinging to the railway embankment and the trampolines and bikes in the back of other, more blessed households. Constance was blessed mainly with enough space to put up three D'Artagnans, not that it would be allowed. In the kitchen rubbing harissa into a shank, she had heard the clank of the pipes and then the rattle as hot water drained away. So D'Artagnan might be a slob, but he was a clean slob. Fresh smelling around the house, that was important.

The Musketeers in general kept pretty well scrubbed. Maybe it was a soldier thing. Athos had that spicy aftershave, though presumably he just dabbed it under his ears or something, since shaving was a hobby he'd given up when he joined. Porthos favoured a down to earth twenty second blast of Lynx. And Aramis, well.

Aramis always smelled wonderful. She had no idea how he did it. A different scent every time she noticed. She could swear she'd caught a whiff of Chanel Number Five one time. -Maybe he moonlighted on the perfume counter at Harrods.

She grinned, imagining him wafting fragrance at the ladies who lunch, plus the ladies who wished they could lunch, not to mention the ladies married to middle eastern princes.

Blimey. Now she thought of it Aramis would make a fortune in commission.

"What?" asked D'Artagnan, and Constance rearranged her features.

"Nothing. Eat your tea."

He studied her. "You're doing your utmost to play the stern landlady, but it isn't working."

His brown eyes, on her. She busied herself with knife and fork. The lamb was meltingly perfect.

"You're not strict at all," he said wonderingly. "You're totally soft. But you won't let them see that." He was smiling at her, eyes twinkling, head tilted. He must know it was his good side.

"Them?" She knew who, but had to say something. The look he gave her! It was not like an Aramis look, full of certainty in his own charms, or Porthos' sneaky admiration, or even Athos, poor thing, pretending he was lifeless from the neck down but unable to avoid looking when she wore a halter neck top to work. (Well, it was hot in her office. And frankly it was nice to know she hadn't become a wizened husk.) "Them who?"

That nickname. Silly. But it did have a certain resonance. "The musketeers," said D'Artagnan, conscious that he was now one of them. Sort of.

"And why would I care what they think? Or any of you? Boys with toys." Attack is the best defence.

"I don't know." D'Artagnan pointed at her with his fork. "But you do care. And I'll work it out, you know I will. What do you do at LOUIS, anyway?"

"She works in the library. Who are you?"

D'Artagnan turned.

A man with the shaven head of the self-proclaimed hard man stood in the doorway. The keys to a Mitsubishi Evo dangled from his meaty fingers. His neck was strewn with faux military dog tags, and a word beginning Const- inked its way down into his v-necked tight T shirt.

"Kev!" Constance got to her feet. "This is D'Artagnan . He's from work. New. Nowhere to live yet. I said he could stay here for a couple of days. A few days."

She was gabbling, her cheeks flushed, her hands twisting together and apart. D'Artagnan looked from her flushed face to Kev's scowl.

"Maybe a week. Or two," said Constance as Kev continued to stare at her, his jaw set, ignoring D'Artagnan.

A week? There had been no mention of more than tonight when Treville ordered D'Artagnan to stay.

D'Artagnan stood up too, and held out his hand. "D'Artagnan," he said. "Nice to meet you."

Kev grunted at him. He jerked his head at Constance, and walked through to the living room without a word.

What a dickhead. Well, D'Artagnan had only agreed to one night. He was, he realised, committed to helping the Musketeers find Trace's attackers and solve the mystery of the PiP messages. But he didn't have to do it where he wasn't welcome.

He heard the rumble of Kev's voice, and then Constance's, in a furious whisper. Then silence. And then a squeak.

Just a squeak. Tiny and brief, like the involuntary whimper of an animal which has been kicked to stop it barking. But D'Artagnan's nostrils flared.

Maybe he could stay for a week.

Later, in bed under the sloping attic ceiling, D'Artagnan thought: But Constance doesn't work in the library.

The trains clattered past, bursting from their tunnel into the night air, or burying themselves in the mouth of the world under London where it is permanently night. D'Artagnan could not distinguish the direction of the trains and imagined the sounds as a single locomotive, travelling crazily both to and from freedom, stretching and contracting like a spring, tense and release, tense and release over and over until it finally gave way.

The trains smothered any noise from downstairs and D'Artagnan lay awake, and listened, and wondered.

* * *

 

Carlton Place, London, 6th March, 8pm

"Music," declared Aramis. "Loud music, and beautiful women."

"And booze," said Porthos.

They stood on the steps of their elegant headquarters, allowing the foot traffic to flow past on the pavement below, bracing themselves against the March wind and the brisk pace of the evening commute. Work accoutrements had been consigned to their lockers and an attempt at casualwear had been made. This principally involved swapping shirts for T shirts, except in Aramis' case, for whom dressing down involved a crisp white shirt, glossy shoes and a sharp tailored jacket he certainly could not afford on a musketeer wage.

Aramis turned his collar up against the chill. Porthos glanced at this and smirked. Aramis merely narrowed his eyes, secure in the conviction of his superior style.

Athos put his hands in his jacket pockets. "You may leave me out of the carousing," he said. "I am in the mood for quiet."

"Not going to happen," said Aramis. "You're coming with us. I know a place, or rather, someone I know knows a place -"

"-Someone you know. It's always someone you know," said Porthos, reflexively scanning the street. The new recruit had been sent off under the tender care of Constance, and Treville's analysts were larking about with the high tech stuff. It was time to chill.

"-It's supposed to be very good," said Aramis, with an injured air.

"Still, I will leave you to your fun," said Athos.

Aramis sighed.

"You do talk rubbish," said Porthos, and he and Aramis grasped Athos' arms and marched him down the steps to the street. Aramis used his free hand to hail a black cab.

"For the sake of my delicate knuckles and your dignity," said Athos, "I will go with you. But only if there's decent wine."

"After the first few we won't care," said Porthos, and a cab rattled up to the kerb.

* * *

 

The place, recommended by Aramis' someone, was in Hoxton, an area which had been edgy ten years previously and was now merely on a popularity plateau, finding favour with office workers and the ironic nostalgic crowd, rather than the hipsters and arty types which had made the area's name. There was a first floor bar, a wistfully empty performance space, and, occupying the ground floor and basement, a club. The music emanating from there was as loud as Aramis could have hoped, and the women, in as much as they wore short skirt suits and high heels and carried the air of lawyers and brokers ready to let down their expensively-styled hair, were as beautiful as the LED mood lighting could make them.

Aramis claimed a space by an arched first floor window, at a chest-high table surrounded by teetering bar stools, which the men ignored. Porthos acquired a carafe of the house red, and Athos poured.

They clinked glasses in a wordless toast. Athos winced at the wine, but swallowed it down anyway.

"Not bad," said Aramis, eyes roving around the room. "Not bad at all."

"You speak, of course, of the architecture," said Athos, staring into his glass.

"Oh yeah," said Porthos, as two girls in pinstripe minidresses and patent heels tottered past. "Classic London style."

"Early modern build," said Aramis, his eyes following Porthos'. "With strong suggestions of a twenty first century attitude."

"Just go," said Athos. He lifted his head and gave them his wry smile. "If I can't get a proper drink at least let me have a peaceful one."

"Suit yourself." Aramis downed his wine, and glided towards the women. Porthos spread his hands helplessly at Athos, then followed.

Left alone, Athos finished the wine, and gestured to the barman to bring the list. He indicated his choice with one finger on the name of the vintage, and passed a folded note into the hand of the barman as the bottle arrived.

He sipped his drink and contemplated the bar, and the day.

D'Artagnan. A young fool. Plucky, certainly, and highly persuasive. But he had no hard proof of his suspicions, and had actually allowed himself to be seduced out of the main evidence by a woman. All that remained were a few scraps of a larger communication, one word of which was coincidentally connected to today's mission.

Yes: coincidence. It had to be. Except that Athos was suspicious of coincidence.

Still, D'Artagnan had sought, and found, LOUIS, the Musketeers, and Athos himself. That was impressive. And then, armed only with bar brawl skills and an unshakable sense of his own righteousness, he had jumped into a vengeance fistfight with three strangers, and not immediately smiled at the bottle. There might well be a career for D'Artagnan at LOUIS, one day. With a decent mentor, a man like young D'Artagnan might go far.

A man like D'Artagnan .

Athos drank deeply, forgetting to savour the vintage. That was what troubled him. It was not D'Artagnan's outrageous claims, his idiotic challenge to Athos, or his pigheaded refusal to let the thing go. It was his resemblance, his striking resemblance in person and attitude, to another boy Athos had known.

Dark hair, bright dark eyes, boundless energy with little to direct it until LOUIS - yes, Athos had known someone just like that.

And now that boy was dead.

And it must not happen again to the next misguided youth looking for adventure and glory.

Athos tipped up the bottle and found he was at its end already. Good. There was a chance he would sleep tonight.

He looked for Aramis among the crowd and saw him, posed artlessly against a green-painted iron pillar, his eyes devouring the pretty girl he was listening to. He gave every impression that what she was saying had transformed his life.

Porthos was leaning on the bar, elbow to elbow with a couple of other blokes, engaged in earnest conversation about something which was about to involve a wager. Even as Athos watched, Porthos flinched as if insulted, took out his wallet and a pack of cards and slapped both down on the bar.

Ah, Porthos. He would be going home with double the money tonight.

Athos drank.

* * *

 

Aramis appeared and draped his arm around Athos' shoulders. "We're leaving."

"All right."

Athos had admitted a level of defeat and was slumped on the tall bar stool, supported by the wall. His jacket chafed on the rough brick. His boots still showed orange dust from the events at the reservoir. His hair hung over his eyes and the set of his mouth showed Aramis that tonight was for determined drinking, drinking with the aim of becoming stupefied.

Athos did this regularly. Basically Athos did not drink except to get drunk. It was a miracle he had ant brain cells left and had never been robbed as he staggered home. If he carried on like this -

Aramis drew a breath. Drunk or sober, Athos could take care of himself. His liver was his business. He could retaliate if attacked, and sarcasm dealt with nearly everything else. Athos was, basically, immune to people.

And whatever the reason for tonight's winefest, Aramis could not help.

He peered at Athos. Athos kept his head down and shrugged. "See you tomorrow," said Aramis. He gripped Athos' shoulder for a moment, then released him, gave Porthos the nod and they swaggered away.


	8. No promises

Lights exploded in violet blooms above his head. The floor polished the soles of his shoes one twist at a time. His arms stretched up and he moved from the core, just hips, sliding with the beat. Music pulsed all around and Athos danced.

The club was in darkness except for flare from the dance floor lights. The other revellers were mere shadows, and he would be only a dark shape to them. Sweat made his white T shirt cling to his back. His hair dampened the nape of his neck.

He was already wearing the ostentatious watch which would get him mugged on the way home. His obvious drunkenness would provide the rest of the lure for whichever lowlife earned tonight's right to a thrashing. But there was time before then for loosening the body, shaking off a day of frustrations, blinding his mind's eye with the rainbow glare of the club.

Women danced close to him. It was notionally pleasant. They sashayed around him, turning their eager faces up to see if they could tempt him with wide eyes and spread lips. He preferred it when he and they occuped the same space but not facing. No eye contact, just anonymous sensuality.

A half-seen girl, in a dark vest flowing over draped trousers, twirled around and behind him, her clothes collecting purple light. Athos spun in his turn to stand at her back, synchronising, his gaze following the crease of her spine down into her shirt, his hips against her bottom. He leaned his chin on her temple, his beard mingling with her cropped hair, and breathed in her lemon biscuit scent, and in a moment of decision, placed his hands on her waist.

She laughed and twisted around to look up into his face.

And then they both were shocked, because he was Athos of the Musketeers, drunk and dancing in a club, and she was Eve Kirkham of Anglezarke, and the orange paint.

 

* * *

 

The cafe had bright white fluorescent bulbs which made everything look exhausted. Eve sat at a table in the dimmest corner and ordered two coffees. Athos scorned this and said, "Do you have wine?"

"I have beer," said the owner. Athos nodded, holding up two fingers.

Two bottles with colourful Czech labels arrived alongside two cups of thin brown liquid. The owner retreated and continued his conversation with a couple of all-night cab drivers.

Eve sipped her coffee, made a face, and picked up the first beer bottle. Athos wrapped his hand around the second. There was a pause as each battled convention and courtesy, and lost: Eve lifted her bottle, and Athos clinked his against it. They drank.

The silence that followed went on and on. At last Eve said, "You do know that's not a real Breitling?"

Athos followed her gaze to his wrist. "Ah. Yes."

She considered him, and the fake watch. "I hope you picked it up for less than a tenner in some Turkish night market."

He gave a slight smile. "Yes. But it was Macau."

She could not think where Macau was. India? Nowhere near a Ryanair destination, that was for sure. "Good. Cos it'll only get nicked by someone who doesn't spot that the bevel is all wrong for a Breitling."

If he was impressed he did not show it. He shrugged. "I have others. I don't really wear watches, anyway."

"So why - " She stopped. Athos did not seem likely to answer questions. She thought. Him, a large fake watch on display, the seedier end of town. "You wanted it to get nicked."

He gazed at her, sipped from the bottle.

"You wanted someone to thieve it and then you were going to..." She opened her mouth, frowned. "Oh God. Really? You?"

He held the rim of the bottle against his lip.

"Surely vigilante sting operations are a bit beneath you," she said.

He gave a one shoulder shrug.

"Athos," she said.

He raised one eyebrow.

"Come back to my place."

This actually got a flicker. He swallowed his mouthful of beer and blinked. "Why?"

She gathered courage and reached her free hand across the table to cover his. His skin was hot. "It saves time," she said.

He looked down at her hand on his. Then he shook his hand free, shifted in his seat, his eyes everywhere but on her face.

Eve bit the insides of her lips. So much for the direct approach. He had not seemed like the shrinking violet type (guns, horses, matter-of-fact violence) but you never could tell. Some men cannot bear to be wooed.

Then his fingers closed tightly around hers and he muttered, "All right."

There was another pause in which neither acknowledged the tremor in their touch. Then he ran his hand over his hair, pulled a note from his jeans pocket and threw it on the table. He stood, and drew her up too, still holding her hand. She had a flash of him, in cape and sword, leading her onto a chequered terrace by moonlight. She drew breath sharply. Stupid romantic imagination. But his lordly manner suggested old courtesies. Old fashioned attitudes too? She would have to wait and see.

Outside on the street he stopped and looked enquiringly at her.

"It's not far," she said, jerking her head in the direction of the hotel LOUIS had given her as compensation for questioning her all the way down in London. "Just up here."

He gave an upwards nod and released her hand. Then in a fluid motion he gripped her by the shoulders, pulled her to him and kissed her on the mouth. Eve gasped, recovered, and kissed him back, tasting beer, and bitter chocolate, but he slid away as she moved to hang her arms around his neck. "All right," said Athos again, grasping her hand and taking a step in the direction Eve had indicated. "Let's go."

* * *

 

Athos swayed on the steps of Eve's narrow hotel near Old Street station. He should leave. This was not a good idea. A girl in a club. This girl, mixed up with the Anglezarke business. This girl who had propositioned him. Why? He had to leave. But Eve was tugging his arm, urging him inside.

This was weakness. This was folly. He knew nothing about her. (Slender figure, large eyes, soft hands, boyish hips balanced by breasts of that perfect shape, the curve out and in, like a tulip.) She could be some tool of the enemy, seducing him into a trap with wiles. (Dry northern voice and sardonic smile, direct suggestion of bed, no pointless attempts at flattering a vanity he had never possessed.)

He was not Aramis. Or Porthos. He did not deserve the luxury of taking a striking woman to bed. His only luxury was oblivion.

"Come in," said Eve.

He climbed one step.

If she had tried to persuade him further - if she had wheedled or pouted or demanded, he would have turned away. But she didn't. She let go his arm and climbed to the door and swiped it with her keycard. Holding it ajar with one hand she looked back at him and waited.

Her expression was patience and acceptance. He knew that if he left she would simply enter the hotel and be gone. She had no doubts. Her mind was clear.

He moved.

As his hand reached for hers at the threshold, he glanced up, and saw the modern lit sign of the hotel mounted crudely on the graceful limestone facade. Part of the old house name was still visible: OKE, in antique lettering.

Eve's fingers were gentle in his as she led him silently inside.

* * *

 

What followed was strange and intense. There was no romance, no breathless exclamation at beauty or talent. There was little exchange of words at all.

Eve unlocked her room with a Yale key on a big wooden fob. Entering, she kicked aside the carrier bags of clothes she had purchased between LOUIS and the hotel.

The bed was made, decorative red cushions arrayed in front of white pillows. A leatherbound book placed on the coverlet offered information about hotel services.

Eve removed her boots, each with the opposite foot, as Athos came in and closed the door. In the soft hotel lighting, he was even more beautiful than before.

He looked around, taking in the yellow Anaglypta walls, the dusty red velvet curtains, the avocado bathroom glimpsed through another doorway.

Finally his gaze came back to her, and he stared.

She stood still. She had done the asking; she should do the seduction. Yet to pounce the moment they were inside - he might be offended.

She thought of his kiss, swift but perfect, the kiss of a man who had loved often and skilfully. He'd seemed willing enough, once the thing had been agreed. His hands were strong and graceful, like the rest of him. And his eyes, she saw, were not brown as she had thought under the grey sky of early morning, but blue, the colour of Windermere on an autumn day.

She could not read his face. Everything was guarded, even as he shrugged off his heavy leather jacket and let it slither to the floor, even as he, too, eased his feet from his sharp-toed boots. He was here, but was he still weighing his decision?

Was she?

They moved at once, Eve to kiss him, Athos to slide his hands under her vest and caress her bare back. He did not like to be hugged, but as she unfastened his belt he kissed her urgently, his eyes closed.

He swept the cushions onto the floor, and the hotel book. Eve held him only with her kiss. His hands roamed over her arms, her back, her ruffled hair.

They toppled onto the bed. It creaked loudly and Eve laughed. Athos, propped on his left elbow, opened his eyes, gave her a _Really_? look and bent to caress her collarbone with his mouth, his free hand inside her top, curving around her left breast. She gasped, and hauled his T shirt up. As he threw it aside, he thumbed the light switch, leaving them in the orange glow from the street.

Skin to skin they fumbled with zips and trousers, Eve unable to suppress amazed laughter at their daring, Athos merely purposeful and intent. She had thought him drunk, but he showed no sign of that now, sliding his body next to hers, tangling their legs as the last garments disappeared.

He paused and said formally, opening his eyes, "Do you have a condom?"

"Yes - "

Somewhere in her bag there was one which was probably from this decade. She leapt for it and checked the date, self consciously.

"I am reassured rather than horrified," he said drily, making her blush.

"I don't usually -"

He held up his hand, stopping her. "Neither do I."

She clutched the packet in her hand and flung herself back onto the bed. Athos gathered her into his arms and took charge of the packet too. She realised, as she lay running her hands over his pale skin, that she felt no fear, no unease with this man in her bed. Just as she had on the bridge, the horse loose, pain and chaos all around, she simply trusted him. It was that straightforward.

He trailed his fingers over her stomach, making her shiver, and murmured into her ear, "Now?" and she said, "Yes."

Nakedness and confidence do not always coincide, but unimpeded by conversation Eve and Athos wrapped around each other and the sheets, and he kept his eyes closed and she had hers open and stroked his face and kissed him hard at the crucial moment, and although he had resisted being clung to he allowed it then and clasped her to him too, learning by touch alone when she wanted him to continue or cease.

And then Eve sprawled over him, her face in the dark hair on his chest so that he could not be put off by eye contact. So he had issues. Everyone has issues.

He lay flat on his back, and from somewhere over her head she heard him say in his precise voice, "Thank you."

What do you say to that? Her brain wouldn't come online for a moment. "Any time. And thank you too."

He flung the covers over them, and that was goodnight.

* * *

 

In the morning she dragged herself up although she had no office to get to, and made coffee from the sachets on the little tray next to the telly.

She stood by the window sipping hers, wrapped in the bathrobe, as Athos dressed behind her. It was raining out, thickening to sleet.

Athos came and stood beside her. She handed him his cup. "I want to see you again," she said. State the facts. Don't ask loaded questions. Act at face value. She had taken tough master classes in what not to say to a male, and Athos was the ultimate test.

He glanced sideways at her, his mouth amused. "I live in London."

A fact for a fact. Fair enough. Have one back. "I know how to use a train."

His eye brows went up. "Will you?"

"If we both want to do this again."

"Yes," he said, and turned his face to her for a second, eyes intense, then moved back to place himself in profile.

Why was a man as beautiful as him still single? Maybe he wasn't. She knew nothing of him, not his proper name, nor what he did for a living, although that intrigued her. What the hell was a musketeer, anyway?

"Then let's swap numbers," she said, since he had volunteered nothing more.

"All right."

She had been right, completely right, to cut to the chase last night. At this monosyllabic pace it would have taken months to get to the bedroom.

He pulled out his phone, flicked at it, passed it to her to get the number. It was heavy in her hand, a foreign shape. She held it carefully. A strange, twenty-first century intimacy.

She texted him from her own phone and returned his to him. "I will call," she said clearly. "Probably tomorrow."

He nodded.

Old Street was beginning to roar outside her window. She could see him growing antsy to leave, get to work, be alone and assimilate all that had happened. She felt a similar urge. The moment he was gone she was going to flop back on the bed and grin wildly and shriek a little maybe and whisper, _Athos, Athos, oh my god._

They parted with a lingering kiss and then he looked at her, full in the face, memorizing her. "Au revoir," he said, quite seriously, and she laughed, and closed the door behind him.

In the taxi back to Docklands Athos looked at Eve's text message. _I ask nothing except to share some time with you. E x_

He stared at her promise of no promises, and thought of Macau, and saw nothing of the view all the way home.

Eve showered and thought of breakfast. She rang up and ordered room service. She wasn't paying, so why not?

While she waited for food to appear, she flipped through the hotel information book. "This refurbished hotel offers modern facilities in an ancient building, which has had many names, but which was known principally as Brokenstone."

.

.

* * *

 

Author's Note. Any feedback, especially on the not-love scene is much appreciated! I am all about the implicit sex, but does it work in this chapter? Thanks for your thoughts. -Sef


	9. Threats

London, 7th March, 10 am

"The thing about terrorist threats," said Porthos, "is that there are always a lot of terrorist threats. Every day we get handed great piles of information from Interpol, CIA, MI5, you name it."

The musketeers and D'Artagnan were perched on the arms of chairs in the surgical ward waiting room at St Thomas Hospital, Trace having been transferred overnight on orders from LOUIS. Around them, friends and family of the sick collected makeshift breakfasts from the vending machines or sat mindlessly slurping coffee, exhaustion and worry etched on their faces. But Trace had no visitors except D'Artagnan and his new associates.

They had not yet been permitted to see Trace and were relegated to this white-lit room with its chairs upholstered in pale pink vinyl like so many stuffed tongues. The floor was vinyl too, patterned in splattered green. D'Artagnan wrinkled his nose at the hospital smells: bleach, antibacterial gel, reheated food.

Aramis passed D'Artagnan his phone.

D'Artagnan looked at the miniscule print scrolling down his screen. "These are all threats?" His brain whirred with ways to sift through such a mass of data.

Athos, leaning against a machine offering Ice Cold Drinks, crunched an apple and looked on.

"You wouldn't believe the people who are out to get us," Aramis said.

"Only problem is," said Porthos, "most of the time they're hoaxers or fantasists. People sitting in their bedrooms winding up the internet with stories of what terrible things they're going to do as soon as their mum lets them stay up a bit later."

"So getting something which might actually be real is quite exciting," said Aramis.

" _Not_  the word I'd use," said Athos.

A woman in the smart-casual attire of the twenty-first century medic appeared through the double doors. "Mr D'Artagnan," she stated.

D'Artagnan rose.

"I'm Sarah, one of the doctors here," she said.

"Why do they do that?" Porthos muttered to Aramis. "Why can't they just say, I'm doctor so and so?"

"It's more reassuring," said Aramis. "Sets the family at their ease, with a friendly tone. "

"I don't want her to be my friend. I want her to have a degree in doctoring."

Athos hissed at them.

"Your friend is stable," said the doctor to D'Artagnan . "But we're keeping him unconscious for the present."

"Can we see him?" asked D'Artagnan . Athos had yet to identify Trace, and D'Artagnan needed Athos to accept his story. Once they recognised Trace as a former colleague, the musketeers would put their resources into revenge. D'Artagnan hoped.

"We're very concerned," said Porthos. He gave a wide-eyed leer , making the doctor recoil.

"You really shouldn't try sincerity," Aramis said. "It comes out as sarcasm."

"I can't help my voice."

"It's more the face."

"Oi!"

"Hush," said Athos. "A man lies sick."

He glared at Porthos as Aramis chuckled. D'Artagnan envied them all their easy camaraderie.

The doctor held open the double doors for them. They trooped along the wide green corridor and into the surgical ward. Five beds had floral curtains around them. The sixth held Trace.

D'Artagnan approached. His friend's head was bandaged, and his face was black and yellow, puffy. He was dressed in a plain white gown, and each hand was connected to a different drip.

D'Artagnan swallowed. "Trace," he said. He hadn't meant to speak. He knew it was stupid to talk to a man in a coma. The name just came out.

He was aware of the others grouped behind him.

"Shit," said Porthos.

"This is him," said D'Artagnan, unnecessarily.

"Carpenter," said Aramis. Porthos nodded. "He was one of the footsoldiers," Aramis said. "Left around the time I joined, but I remember him."

"He was a right miserable git," said Porthos.

"You do know him," D'Artagnan said, attempting a laugh.

"Good, though," added Porthos, as Aramis smiled grimly in agreement.

Trace lay still and gave no reaction to being discussed in the past tense.

Athos' hand landed on D'Artagnan's shoulder. "We will find out who did this to him," he said in a low voice. "And we will find out why."

Before D'Artagnan could respond, three phones bleeped simultaneously. He jumped, and scrabblee for the phone Constance had supplied the day before, but there was no message.

The musketeers had already found theirs. "SCADA hack," said Athos. "Bazalgette Station, right now."

The doctor burst back in. "Out, now!" she barked. "This patient needs quiet!"

"We're leaving," said Athos.

"And what he needs," said D'Artagnan as he passed the doctor, "is justice."

"Nice," said Aramis to D'Artagnan.

They jogged through the corridors, boots squealing on the slippery floors.

Athos talked on his phone as they ran. "The van will be there. Everything on it." He paused, looked back at D'Artagnan. "Not you D'Artagnan. Sorry. This is LOUIS business."

"I want to help," said D'Artagnan.

"Do you even know what a SCADA attack is?" Porthos asked D'Artagnan as they reached the exit.

D'Artagnan hesitated.

Athos sighed. "We're wasting time." The three musketeers turned away.

"It's a term used to describe the antiquated control systems in a lot of critical installations like gas rigs, power stations, oil pipelines," said D'Artagnan.

Athos halted and narrowed his eyes at D'Artagnan. "So have you ever worked on such a system?"

"Um," said D'Artagnan.

"Let him come along," said Aramis. "An extra body could be useful. So long as you know how to take orders," he added.

"Yes, sir," said D'Artagnan.

In the black van which hustled them across London, Aramis asked D'Artagnan, "How did you know that, really?"

D'Artagnan was ready with his answer. "I can just Google really quickly."

Athos glanced at him disdainfully.

D'Artagnan clutched at the ceiling straps as the van reeled around a corner. If he wanted their help, he was going to have to be more careful.

 


	10. Cut glass

Thames Estuary, outskirts of London, March 7th, 11 am

Clouds hung low over the desolate slab of estuary which was the musketeers' destination. D'Artagnan looked around for railway tracks as they jumped out of the van, but saw none. If this was Bazalgette Station then it looked remarkably like a car park, the gritty, unofficial kind run by a bloke with a fibreglass booth and a handpainted sign promising _All Day Three Pound Fifty_. Grass poked between the stones. A string between two concrete blocks formed the gate.

The black van roared away as soon as all four were out, spraying damp grit on D'Artagnan's legs. The musketeers, who had spent the last ten minutes of the journey calmly applying weapons to their clothing, did not react. D'Artagnan would not ask.

He had no firearm. Athos had allowed him a baton - "For self defence only. Don't go clubbing people you may encounter."

"Unless they're a lethal threat to you," said Aramis cheerfully. "In which case, bludgeon away."

"Aramis is joking, of course," said Athos through gritted teeth.

"Yeah," said Porthos. "You'll be shot long before you get a chance to hurt anyone."

"Speaking of which," said Aramis, laying his hand on Athos' shoulder.

Everyone looked.

Two men emerged from a looming concrete building some hundred yards away. The structure looked like some wartime installation, maybe a gun emplacement. The men were heading towards the musketeers and the car park.

"All right," said Athos. "Looks like they've already done what they came to do. Let's collect them and persuade them to tell us where their employers are before the Cardinal's men get here."

"Time for a little light apprehenson of offenders," said Porthos, grinning.

"Stay back," said Aramis to D'Artagnan. "They're usually not very good with guns."

"Isn't that a good thing?"

"Not really," said Athos, pulling on his gloves. "Although it ultimately saves time when they blow their own heads off, it makes it a lot more difficult to get the confessions." He shot D'Artagnan a quirk of a smile and strode off towards the men, who had halted uncertainly.

"There's something I don't get," D'Artagnan said as Aramis led him in a wide arc towards the low concrete building from which the two strangers had emerged. "Why are they here?"

"What do you mean?"

"If the system is accessible remotely, why are the hackers at the station? They could be at home."

Aramis looked at him strangely. "The station?"

"Yes. Athos' message said Bazalgette Station."

Aramis lifted his hand for quiet as they approached the door to the building. The door, a dented steel affair fitted with peeling grey paint, had a shiny new brass padlock.

Aramis grunted, and reached into his pocket. D'Artagnan instinctively stepped back, expecting the explosion of a shot to the lock. "Please," said Aramis, and produced a small tool with which he rapidly picked the mechanism. "We may be the blunt weapons in the armoury of anti terrorism, but that need not mean that we lack subtlety."

There was a boom of gunfire. D'Artagnan flinched, but Aramis did not react. "So why are the hackers here?" D'Artagnan asked again. "Why couldn't they access it by hacking the station's old software?"

They entered a dim space where the air was so chill that it felt damp on his skin, and began descending shallow concrete steps towards a central well. Peering over the single hand rail, D'Artagnan saw a control station at the bottom, unmanned.

"You've misunderstood," said Aramis. "We don't go to the place which has been attacked. We go to the place it was hacked from."

"Oh," said D'Artagnan. "So this is-"

"Bazalgette pumping station. Disused," said Aramis. "Power and phone line, no passing traffic. A perfect place for a lair." He smiled dangerously as there came a rattle of gunfire outside. "There's no one here. Shall we join the others?"

* * *

The confrontation was brief. Athos and Porthos overpowered the hackers and D'Artagnan and Aramis disarmed them.

The men were on the ground and Porthos had handcuffed one with cable ties when a white van screamed up to the car park and slammed on brakes. Its side doors whistled back to release a clump of black-clad men cradling small semi automatic rifles.

"Here we go," said Porthos, tugging the first prisoner's ties tight.

"We must be civil," said Athos, moving to greet the arrivals.

Aramis looked up from his own prisoner. "I've never understood why. How will they get the message that we loathe them?"

D'Artagnan hung back, unsure. Porthos curled his lip, giving the newcomers a contemptuous look. "The CARDs," he explained. "So-called Covert Antiterrorism Response Division."

D'Artagnan was about to ask more when he glanced down at the second prisoner and saw the man's hand sneaking down towards his boot, drawing out a black object. D'Artagnan registered the grip of a pistol and cried out, but the man elbowed Aramis in the throat and scrambled to his feet, pointing the gun at Athos.

Porthos leapt for him but D'Artagnan was nearer. "Drop!" he yelled and knocked the gunman's arm upwards.

The shot went high, and Athos was on the floor, rolling over, weapons drawn, to face D'Artagnan.

The prisoners were now face down in the dirt with Porthos and Aramis flattening them, Aramis with a bruise blossoming on his neck. Athos rose with dignity.

He was alive, again. That was first. But second, today, was that he was relieved. There were, after all, things still to be done.

He gave D'Artagnan a cool, courteous nod and went to meet the Cardinal's men.

* * *

"It was our collar," said Porthos, spearing a piece of apple. He ate it from the point of his knife, glowering at Athos, while Aramis nodded agreement. "But as usual the CARDs just swooped in and grabbed the glory."

The musketeers and D'Artagnan were back at Carlton Place, eating lunch around a frosted glass table and grumbling about the team from Charles Ritchley's department making off with the would-be terrorists.

"And why?" asked Athos.

"Because they can't bear to admit that we do anything worthwhile," said Aramis.

"No," said Athos. "They had one key advantage." He glanced around.

"A million times more funding than us?" suggested Aramis.

"No," said Athos, and smiled. "Their van arrived before ours."

This drew scowls from Aramis and Porthos.

"Remember," said Athos, "we have a bigger problem to worry about. Let Ritchley's people wade through the paperwork for trespass, illegal possession of a firearm -"

"Breaking and entering," said D'Artagnan. "Squatting."

"Yes," said Athos. "Eventually they will get to the potentially terrorist element. Meanwhile we have other things to do. Such as working out if D'Artagnan's messages really do mean that there will be an attack, tomorrow, on a person or place connected with the word Brokenstone."

"Precisely," said a woman's cut-glass voice. D'Artagnan noticed the others drawing to attention, and straightened in his seat. The woman was honey blonde and somewhat regal, in a draped cream blouse and coffee-coloured trousers. Her hair was folded into a movie-star pleat at the back. She wore kitten-heeled cream sandals and her movements were sinuous. If she hadn't been at least thirty she would have been hot.

"Good morning, minister," said Athos. "This is D'Artagnan , ma'am," he added, presenting him.

"Anne Osterley," said the woman, and shook D'Artagnan's hand firmly.

D'Artagnan scratched any idea of her as a female: this was the boss. Now he looked again, he had seen her in the news. Something about North Sea oil. "So what's happening?"

Porthos gave him a Shut up! look, but Anne moved close to D'Artagnan and said, "Your messages give me more of a problem than just another few entries in our list of possible threats." She ran her eyes over his face as if she could see into his brain.

D'Artagnan swallowed. Up close, Anne Osterley was beautiful and intimidating. She turned away in a swirl of fragrance and said, "It means I now need to find the threat, and our security leak."

"We will remove any threat to this department," said Athos.

"And if there's a mole we'll find it," said Porthos.

Aramis said nothing. His hand went to his throat.

"You are aware that this department is regarded as a drain on public resources," said Anne. She swept her gaze across each of them in turn, and D'Artagnan was aware that his hastily-laundered jersey and denim compared poorly to the others' tough leather and workmanlike weaponry. Anne sniffed as she observed his amateurish attempt to appear cool. Porthos and Aramis got bare acknowledgement. Only Athos, statuelike, seemed to pass muster. "When we succeed we cannot brag about it because our methods must remain secret. When we fail, we risk closure."

She sighed, and walked around their table, dragging her pearl-painted fingernails along its icy surface. The sound was raw and mournful, like the cry of a gull for its mate . "We don't know what Brokenstone is, only that logically it will occur early tomorrow morning, if it follows the pattern of the message describing Anglezarke. We are vulnerable, gentlemen, and not only to this attack. Charles Ritchley would love to shut us down, and only my connection with the Prime Minister has thus far preserved us."

"The Home Secretary may not be aware of the full scope of our work," said Athos mildly.

Porthos snorted.

"I hope not," said Anne. "I prefer to manage my department without helpful suggestions from my rivals."

She moved to leave, then paused. "One more thing. It has come to my attention that the three of you have gained a level of notoriety."

Porthos, Athos and Aramis froze.

D'Artagnan cut his eyes at them in surprise.

"I have asked Constance to excise, once again, the  _I Heart Athos_  Facebook group," said Anne.

"Oh, the internet," said Porthos. "Thank god for that, I thought she meant - " Aramis elbowed him and he shut up.

"I trust this is the last time I find footage of your exploits covered in virtual kisses," said Anne drily, and stalked out.

D'Artagnan looked at Athos in amusement. Was he - blushing?

Constance breezed into the canteen, wearing a yellow tea dress and dotty red and black slippers. "Your pass," she said to D'Artagnan, looking at him closely. They had not spoken that morning and D'Artagnan had not had a chance to ask her how long he was expected to remain at her home. The unpleasant Kev had not been seen.

Constance had smudges under her eyes today, he noticed. A sleepless night, or accidentally smeared make up, he could not tell.

She placed a thick plastic card in his palm. It had his name and picture on the front, and on the reverse, in a complicated pattern of dots, the words  _LOUIS Special Permission_. "I'm working on your security clearance now. This will get you more or less everywhere in the building," she said. "Don't thank me."

"Thanks," said D'Artagnan automatically, and she rolled her eyes and flounced out.

"Yes," said Porthos to D'Artagnan's infuriated grunt. "She is always like that."

"A fine woman," said Aramis, earning a snort from Athos. "Full of passion."

"Let's get to work," said Athos, tossing his apple across the canteen and into a bin. "If D'Artagnan is going to help us, he will need to be able to fight."

"I can handle myself," said D'Artagnan.

"Please," said Aramis. "If you're referring to your entry to the building yesterday, that was not handling yourself."

"That was suicide," said Porthos. "If we'd been armed -"

"We were armed," said Aramis.

"Yeah, but if we'd been allowed to fire -"

"Let's try to keep fatality to a minimum," said Athos. " D'Artagnan needs to know how we operate."

Athos seemed less wary today, D'Artagnan thought. Perhaps overnight he had overcome his doubts about D'Artagnan.

"Where are we going?" D'Artagnan asked as Athos led the way with light feet down several flights of stairs.

"Training suite," called Aramis, bounding away

Porthos ushered D'Artagnan thrrough a heavy steel door on one of the basements, and laughed at D'Artagnan's face when he read the warning notice.  _Live fire area. LOUIS only._

"That's right," he said. "We weren't made for typing."

 


	11. Signs of the truth

The theatre was filling up. The audience wore casual clothes and carried bags of sweets along with their shopping and their inevitable phones: it was a matinee. To the left and two tiers above the stage, the woman entering the box sneered and pulled the pin from her hair, sending it showering over her shoulders. She scanned the audience in the cheap seats below, but saw no one of note. She was perfectly unknown among this crowd of offhand ballet lovers. Her lip curled.

Milady unbuttoned her long black coat with one gloved hand. Beneath it her dress was midnight and crimson, a mass of tiny satin pleats folding around her body as if she were an Egyptian Queen preparing for the mummification process well in advance of the afterlife.

She smiled at this thought. Pharaohs took their servants with them - whole households slaughtered so that royalty would not have to fetch their own drinks in the hereafter. Pets, spouses and soldiers too - even food, because it would be shameful to arrive and be unable to throw a banquet for your fellow dead.

Who would she take with her? Well, that had already been tested once. Her former husband had no idea of his good luck. No doubt he thought simply that she had chosen another man over him, and she had, but not in the way he might expect, if he thought of it at all. He lacked imagination. It was probable that he was incapable of grasping her betrayal, and she had engineered it so that he would not have to try.

She shook her head. Him, again. Why was it always him, no matter her train of thought to begin with? It was as if her old decisions clung round her, plucking at her coat like the baggage boys at Sharm airport, giving her no peace until she turned on them with a viciousness they never expected in a woman, lashing out with her armoured silver briefcase, snarling at them in Portuguese and Han until they retreated, cowering, like the peasants they were.

They would not dare intrude upon her here, in her private box, or rather, this box which her patron provided.

She picked up the programme from its velvet pocket in the front of the box, and leafed through it. Famous dancers, famous choreographer, famous music. Yawn. The opera glasses could stay locked in their place in the arm of her chair. Milady preferred the freedom of anonymity to the thrill of fame. Although there had been a temporary satisfaction in the scandal of a dogsbody marrying a baronet.

And there he was again! It was because she was in England. It exhumed memories like a landslip shuffling a churchyard. She was not given to dwelling on the past. Triumphs and mistakes, they were all one and the lid slammed down on them. She fanned herself with the program.

The theatre was growing warm. She had to get a grip. She tugged at her dress so that it rode a little lower. Perfume wafted from her cleavage. She smoothed her hair and affected a relaxed yet seductive pose in a seat set back from the balcony. Soon her employer would arrive.

He was late when he did eventually appear, and Milady was not best pleased. "You're not looking very chipper," he said, laughing heartily as if this was a brilliant quip. "This is Swan Lake, you know! Are you the dying swan?"

What fun. "I was longing for you," she said in a low voice. She dropped her gaze, dipped her head as if ashamed to admit the extent of her feeling, then darted a look at him. "I'm sorry. I know we said we would keep this professional."

He blustered a little, embarrassed. "Well, yes, professional. Absolutely."

He glanced at her, or more accurately, at her thighs. "Lovely wrapper today," he murmured. "I do love a female who knows how to dress. Can't bear these grungy types. All that baggy trouser stuff. Got to be classy, you know?"

He was such an oaf. -A rich, powerful oaf who was paying her. She gave a tinkling laugh. "Do I have the go ahead for tomorrow?" A smouldering look softened her brusque words. "Everything is in place."

"Yes," he said. That was it. One word. In his position, and hers, that was all it took.

"I heard what happened at Anglezarke," she said.

"Yes, the LOUIS people stopped us. That was your cock-up."

"That was nothing to do with the messages. The men at LOUIS are just - good." Her companion snorted. Milady hurried on. "I have the phone which intercepted the messages. We destroyed the site which was streaming them. The mistake is contained."

"I pay you not to make mistakes," he said.

The sulk was always there, beneath his aristocratic bottom lip. Milady smiled at him. "Tomorrow. Brokenstone. We are ready."

"You'll humiliate LOUIS?"

"Completely. I am going to -"

"No details! I don't want to have to perjure myself under oath later." She raised an eyebrow. "They start a public enquiry at the drop of a hat nowadays."

She made a moue of indifference. "Whatever you say. The department at Carlton Place will be excruciatingly embarrassed and its position will invite absorption into the Covert Antiterrorism unit."

His hand shot out and gripped her arm, causing her to yelp. His voice was harsh. "Don't speculate about what I might do once LOUIS is gone. Your job is to make it happen, that's all. Leave the politics to the experts, eh?"

She tore her arm free and rubbed it, eyes flashing with anger as much as pain.

"Now then," he said in his public figure voice, reaching for the opera glasses beside her chair. "I'm meeting a group from the Arts Collective here in a minute, and you were just here bringing me my programme." He smiled his jovial smile, and Milady handed him the brochure.

He did not look up as she lifted her coat, limp like the corpse of personal dignity and carried it away.

* * *

"Constance," said Anne. They stood either side of Anne's pale birch desk. Modern standard lamps poured artificial sunshine into the silken surface. The regulation anti-bomb-blast net curtains remained at the tall windows, but Anne had replaced their usual dark green velvet partners with ivory voile. The heavy rugs had soared into a skip. The stuffy atmosphere remained, however. Anne had tried to make her office light and progressive, but it resisted like a python refusing dead chicks. This office demanded live victims. "I have a problem."

Constance placed her tablet on the desk in front of Anne. She had a problem of her own, currently laying waste to three walls of the firing range with his new best buddies, but it would not be of interest to the boss.

"Where is the mole, Constance? Or, if it is not a mole, where is the crack n our security through which a nasty little rat has crawled?" Anne stood and paced around the room. "Treville assures me of his musketeers' loyalty, but how can I be sure? He has allowed this boy D'Artagnan, this unknown, into our midst, on barely more than a nod. Even assuming D'Artagnan is innocent, what of Treville's judgement? How can I tell who to trust?"

She struck the wooden floor with her heels as she strode, deliberately cracking down hard. The hundred-year-old pine was pitted with months of contemplation.

"I have analysed all data in and out in the last week," said Constance, tapping the tablet and again proffering it to to Anne, who ignored it. "I haven't found anything. It must be a person, a human weakness."

"The weakest link in any security chain is always the human," muttered Anne. She marched to the window, scowled out at the tops of double decker buses heading for the West End, and stalked back, past Constance, to the door.

Constance had to get her attention. "I have some test data here," she said as Anne resumed pacing. "From my tests of the - strength of our systems."

She lay her hand on Anne's arm and stopped her with that and an urgent look. Anne flinched, affronted by such familiarity, then saw what Constance was thrusting under her nose.

On the tablet Constance had scrawled,  _Your office is bugged._

Anne's eyes opened wide.

Constance swiped the tablet clear, saying, "Do you see, ma'am, my tests have been comprehensive. You, and this department's mission, are not in any danger." She wrote,  _We think the next attack will be tomorrow_.

"Thank you," said Anne. Constance could see her resisting the impulse to search for the listening devices; she kept her eyes rather unnaturally fixed on Constance.

 _Do you want a musketeer detail at your home?_  wrote Constance. "You're welcome, ma'am."

Anne thought of her husband, and the sneer on his face when he learned that she was under threat because of inadequacies in her own department. "I have a late session in the House tonight," she said. "And I'm having dinner with a friend first. So you've set my mind at rest with this news." She shook her head  _No_  to Constance's question.

"If that's all then ma'am." Constance smoothed her hand across the tablet and switched it off.

"Yes. Thank you, Constance. Good work."

Constance grimaced, and left, her flat shoes whispering across the pine. She closed the door behind her.

Anne sat down at her desk. She realised that she was afraid - afraid to touch her keyboard and type an email, afraid to pick up her phone. From now on, every word she spoke in this room must be a lie.

There was a knock at her door. She jumped and looked around for cameras. Stupid, stupid. She had to pretend everything was normal. Except that at last, after months of dreading this, she was finally, really under attack, and nothing would ever be the same again. "Come in!"

Aramis of the musketeers opened the door. He wore the uniform they had adopted - brown leather jacket, midnight blue twill trousers, tough boots and all the signs of knife and baton and gun, draped around his body. For a man who sculpted his facial hair, he looked remarkably dangerous.

"Treville says I am to escort you downstairs," he said in his light, melodic voice. He cast his eyes all around Anne's office, seemingly seeking an explanation for this unusual order.

"Thank you," said Anne. She stood, and grabbed her handbag.

"Are you unwell?" he asked.

"No. I'm fine, thank you." Her voice sounded high pitched, panicky, all the things they try to train you out of as a woman politician. Anne clenched the straps of her Radley bag. Lie! For pity's sake, this ought to be easy. "A precaution. We are tightening security against a mole."

Aramis' face darkened. "A traitor!" He stepped towards her, his hand at his holster. "Is there a threat to you?"

He was closer than courtesy permitted. She tucked her Hermes scarf around her throat. "No more than usual," she said, and was able, cherished by thick silk, to smile. "It goes with the territory."

She met his gaze and it was he who dipped his eyes first.

"You must allow us to protect you," he told her, not moving out of her personal space.

"Your job is to protect the nation, not me personally," she said. "The police do that. The special police."

"Ah," said Aramis. "The cardinal."

"Charles Ritchie hates being called the cardinal," Anne said. Normally she would change before going for dinner, and again before going to Parliament, but now she just wanted to leave. Millie wouldn't mind, and the other Members could think what they liked.

"I can live with that," said Aramis.

She studied him. He was part of the team which had prevented the assault on the North Sea oil rigs last year. Athos and Porthos, they were his two constant companions. Treville considered the three of them the top operatives at LOUIS, consistently getting results, consistently not getting killed despite finding themselves in situations for which she could not cover them. Yet until now she had seen them only as a unit, three interchangeable men with dark hair and orders to do whatever was necessary.

Now, her eyes and ears hyped with adrenaline, she saw Aramis afresh, an individual. An individual who liked to stand too close and look deep into her eyes.

She had to suppress a smile. The internet fangirl thing made sense all of a sudden. The leather, the guns - it was all very swashbuckling, even though the derring-do, these days, was strictly curtailed by health and safety.

-Which did not always protect people. "You're hurt," she said. She had not noticed it in the canteen: a livid bruise on his throat, partly hidden under his chin.

He blinked, seeming to register that he was three inches from her. "It's nothing," Aramis said, turning his head away.

A fight. There had been one listed in the interaction report from Bazalgette. Typically, Athos had marked the file No Injuries. How often did these men walk around carrying their machismo in colour on their skin?

More lies. But then this whole place was about concealment, with occasional bursts of revelation.

"I have orders to go with you to the door," he said, moving away, and Anne realised that she had still been staring at his face, searching his skin for further signs of the truth.

He plucked her coat from its hook and draped it around her shoulders. A simple courtesy, a small show of consideration. "Thank you," she said, and his eyes shot back to hers, startled, questioning.

She made it to the corridor, closing the door on bugs and listeners and fear. "My husband doesn't dare help me on with my coat," she said as they waited for the lift.

Aramis raised one eyebrow.

"I might protest," she said. "Feminism. Incapability."

He was too well trained to comment, but she watched his profile all the way to the ground floor, and he was definitely smiling.


	12. Bountiful

**Camden, London, 7th March, 9pm**

Aramis arrived back at his yellow brick terrace. "I'm home," he called, rather quietly.

Despite this, his arrival was noticed, and celebrated.

"Aramis!" The first to greet him was Sansa, a Spanish redhead whose enthusiasm for life was matched only by her enthusiasm for Aramis.

She pounded down the threadbare stairs of their shared Victorian house, and flung her arms around Aramis, kissing him on each cheek, twice.

He had to smile, but before he could speak, the front room door creaked and Carla strode from her bedroom. "You're back!" She beamed at Aramis and placed the back of her hand on his cheek, saying, "I am glad you have suffered no injury today."

"You're so funny," said Sansa tolerantly.

"No, I am Austrian," said Carla. Aramis was grateful for his jacket's high collar. His neck was sore but he did not want fuss, not now

Laurie was the last to emerge, from the kitchen at the back of the house, wiping her hands on a tea towel. "Shepherd's pie tonight," she said, her voice revealing a far north-eastern American state, perhaps Maine. "Hey, Aramis." As the other girls moved deferentially aside, she hooked an arm around Aramis' neck and kissed him on the mouth. "Good day?"

Aramis looked from one to the next and the next. They were great girls. No doubt of it. Rarely could a man have been so cared for in his tatty rented home as he was in this north London terrace. But Anne Osterley had looked him in the eye today, with a frank and heavy gaze which under normal circumstances would have led directly from Hello to waking up in her bed. And he was tired and could not process this oddity.

For the first time in ages, on the way home tonight he had felt the urge to go to Confession. Maybe Mass.

He smiled and kissed Sansa brightly, Carla seriously and Laurie with sufficient linger so as not to raise questions, and then said, "It's been a hell of a day. I'm going for a shower, then bed."

He was exhausted but wired. Tried and tested methods for winding down required strength, stamina, and an ability to make some level of affectionate small talk. A shower and then a darkened room with the shipping news intoning hypnotically over his PiP stream might just have the necessary effect and knock him out.  _There are warnings of gales in all areas except Biscay, Trafalgar and FitzRoy_.  _Low, Rockall, 987, deepening rapidly_...

"No tea?" asked Carla.

He hesitated.

"I'll put it on a tray," said Sansa.

He was grateful. "Is the hot water on?"

They nodded. An impromptu shower was always on the cards in this household.

"I brought some samples home from work," Carla remarked. She ducked into her bedroom and returned holding a gold gift bag.

Aramis took it. "Got any Guerlain?"

Carla wrinkled her nose. "Only this. Very floral." She proffered a miniature bottle.

Aramis sniffed at it. "No...it was warmer than that. Richer."

"Mitsouko," said Carla at once. "I'll look for some tomorrow." She was the world's strictest beautician, very popular with her clients despite this, and had access to many luxurious products.

Sansa acquired a mournful look. "Who wears Guerlain? I do not wear Guerlain."

"It's merely a whim," Aramis said. "A chance breeze brought it to me."

A chance breeze and standing in his boss's halo of delicate fragrance as she quipped with him in the lift. The same chance, perhaps, which often placed him in the perfect position to make the kill shot, or to sneak the knife from the assassin's boot. Life was filled with bountiful opportunity.

And now although it was not late he was relishing an opportunity simply for sleep, and perhaps dreams of beautiful and complicated and passionate women who just wanted to lie quietly and let him rest.

Aramis climbed the stairs towards his room at the top of the house. Three pairs of eyes were focused on his rear as he turned the corner. "I'll be up later," called Laurie casually, but he was too beaten to reply.

* * *

**Author's note:**  Just a quickie, pun absolutely intended, as I am going away this weekend (Leeds! My life is made of glamour. :-) ) and may or may not get the chance to post the next parts. I will try! Let me know what you think of Aramis' home life...and there will be more domesticity and more mystery, soon. -Sef

 


	13. Quesadillas

**Camden, London, 7th March, 9pm**

Constance did a lot of overtime. D'Artagnan had been home for ages and still Constance had not budged from her position at the kitchen table, remonstrating silently with laptop. D'Artagnan noticed that Constance sat with her back to the wall, the laptop screen shielded from his view. She had moved only to gaze at him when he went to fetch an apple, or check on the clothes in the dryer. He grimaced. He was going to have to go shopping. Sitting around the house in your underwear is all very well but not when it is not your house.

He still had no idea what she did at LOUIS.

He bit the apple and crunched its sweet white flesh, wondering idly how she got away with wearing flip flops to work.

"You're staring," she said without raising her head.

"So are you."

Gratifyingly she blushed, pink spreading over her neck and cheeks. "I've got better things to look at than some lanky lodger who needs a shave."

D'Artagnan grinned.

"Chop a few onions if you want to be useful," she said. "I'll make quesadillas for supper."

D'Artagnan shrugged, scooped a plump purple onion from the veg rack and placed it on the wooden chopping board over the sink.

"The second Global is the one you want," Constance said.

D'Artagnan pulled a silver knife from the magnetic rack in the wall. It was sharp. He held the onion with clawed fingers and began steadily slicing.

He turned his eyes back to Constance at the end of the first onion, and found her watching him once again.

"KP, eh," she said.

"I've never been in the army," he said. He took a plastic bowl off the drainer and slid the pile of silvery slices into it.

Constance's fingers rested in the air above her keyboard. "I know. But unless you secretly went to chef school, I would say you chop like a man who's done a fair whack of punishment duties."

D'Artagnan cut his eyes at her.

"Well?" She was doing the stern thing again. It was cute.

"Combined cadet force," he admitted."At school."

"I knew it. Get into trouble?" She began typing again.

"Plenty. Are you writing this down?"

"I think I can keep one fact in my head without making notes. -They kept you in, though?"

He carved a second onion with the same easy flair as the first. "I was good."

She believed it, and now the rest of him made sense. The fitness, the quick reflexes, the ready adoption of a place in a unit, the weapon handling skills. She had seen the footage from the firing range. D'Artagnan was an excellent shot, almost as good as Athos with the same weapon. He would never match Aramis with the rifle, or Porthos for CQB, but he was far too good to have just walked off the street, or rather, from some obscure IT support department.

"Are you interviewing me for a job at LOUIS?"

She would not answer.

"If it helps, I'd take it."

"Everyone would take it," she said. "But don't get your hopes up. Not everyone gets asked."

"I'll do whatever it takes," D'Artagnan said. "I need to know what's going on."

There was still plenty in his past which she had not found. But it was only a matter of time. A history of trouble did not mean exclusion. Look at Porthos. Constance had argued for him, when Anne first took on the department, and she had not been wrong. A mix of skills was needed in the team they were building. A phalanx of pristine ex-army officers would be insufficient for the future which Anne imagined.

It had started with Athos. He was competent, committed, but his drinking threatened his unit's work. Yet he was a leader, able to think, and had some special qualities over and above. Constance had been searching for a man like him for months when Athos' last chance before court martial came across her desk.

Porthos was the first from the schemes. Unused to discipline, said Anne. Unstructured lives, chaotic upbringings, destructive tendencies. Institutionalised, said Constance. More to lose, and a dread of going back where they came from.

Porthos' scar ran down his forehead and across his eye socket. He had a gold tooth. His heavy jewellery had very dodgy provenance. But just as Constance predicted, he worked out fine. The class thing disappeared in battle, and Porthos had access to places where Athos, with his perfect diction and tendency to sarcasm, would have been shot on sight.

Aramis had volunteered. Constance did extra special checks on him. It was possible to be too keen. But Aramis simply enjoyed danger, and being called upon to be lethal at work. He was a great foil to the other two, and Constance knew she had guided Anne to the right choice.

Anne liked D'Artagnan, Constance could tell. She liked him too. Sure he had flaws, weaknesses which might be a risk to the department. But didn't they all? Nobody was perfect.

She realised that once again she had been gazing at D'Artagnan, and had not answered. "For pity's sake," she said. "Put some clothes on, nobody wants to see all that."

He mock-pouted at her, but when he came back in, mercifully dressed in his faded t shirt and threadbare jeans, he smiled at her so warmly that she had to scowl at the laptop, and tell him to peel a carrot.

He would never know that carrots didn't go in quesadillas.

* * *

D'Artagnan ran his finger and thumb over his chin. Pretty smooth. The bumfluff had not been a good look. Now he was more... fresh faced hero. He could leave the rough-and-ready beardiness to the other guys: he had youth and talent in his side.

Lucky really, because his chances of cutting a dash in Constance's chintzy, flower-patterned attic room were otherwise zero.

He picked up his new phone. PiP had crashed again. The site which hosted it had been under attack since the afternoon, with various

DoS attempts. Now it seemed permanently offline, and the ad revenue was nil.

He was going to need this job.

He sighed, flicking through the backoffice controls for his site, and his app.

And there it was.  _Help_.

He scrolled up. Error files from the site describing the repeated overload of hits. And amongst them,  _Help. Help me_.

Code in the cloud. Specifically, the free ad-funded cloud. A bit insecure.

D'Artagnan sat down on the end of his bed. Unpicked the code. Found the hole. Found where someone had got in and was leaving messages.

Added a comment.  _Who are you?_

Saved, drummed his fingers, looked again. Nothing.

As a sudden thought he added the date and time to his comment.

He needed to ring Athos. This was contact this was someone leaking information from the terrorists, this was a breakthrough. Athos would, possibly, be impressed, or at least, slightly less underwhelmed than he currently was with D'Artagnan. Every look he gave D'Artagnan was pained, as if the very sight of him was intrinsically disappointing.

When Athos was with Aramis and Porthos, his expression showed respect.

Well, this find might earn D'Artagnan a tiny measure of Athos' acceptance.

He picked up the phone to call the musketeer leader.

"Hey, piece of shit." The bedroom door crashed against the wall and Kev stood in D'Artagnan's room.

D'Artagnan got to his feet. "What?"

Kev cackled. He stank of Carling, and fags. "You know your name, then. Piece of shit." He swayed, and pressed his hand on the floral wallpaper, obscuring a sunflower. "You're blocking up my broadband with your nancying computer bollocks."

"You're drunk," said D'Artagnan. "Go away, please. I don't want to have to hurt you." He sized Kev up. Stocky, but the mass was gristle instead of strength. And D'Artagnan guessed that Kev's modus operandi was based on promise rather than delivery.

Kev took a lumbering step closer and thrust his sweaty, stubbled face into D'Artagnan's. "You threatening me?"

"You must not be good with words," D'Artagnan said. "Yes. Go away."

Kev swung at D'Artagnan with his meaty arm. "You've got a bloody nerve, coming in here-" He lurched, and his fist made glancing contact with D'Artagnan's chin.

"Oh thank god," said D'Artagnan, and caught Kev's arm, twisting it round while kicking Kev's feet out from under him. Kev collapsed to the carpet with D'Artagnan flattening him against the pink nylon pile.

"Now," said D'Artagnan, "please note the following. I am Constance's guest. I was not using up all your broadband. And if you ever insult me again I will truly hurt you. All right?"

Kev grunted.

"I'll take that as agreement," said D'Artagnan.

He sent Kev reeling into the hallway with a hearty shove. And went to slam his door, only to see Constance's horrified face between the bannisters.

 


	14. Good men

**Westminster, London, 7th March, 10:30 pm**

_Where have all the good men gone, and where are all the gods?_

Good question, thought Anne,

turning PiP's volume up in her earphones. But I am doing my best to address the issue.

She smirked, mentally added and good women and goddesses to the lyric - the long habit of political inclusion- and closed her briefcase. Her watch confirmed that she had done enough for tonight: made her statement in the House, stayed for the vote, caught up on paperwork in the Oriel Room.

Also, the PM had noticed her presence and given her the bluff nod of faint approval which was all the public affection they shared these days. -And pretty much all the private affection too. Thank God she had never taken his name. It was bad enough having to be simultaneously publicly united yet completely impartial, without being called Mrs Prime Minister all the time into the bargain.

An alert came in on her phone, interrupting her PiP stream. She checked it. Aha. She texted Athos, just the word Now, and switched PiP back on.

Music from before she was born poured into her ears - D'Artagnan's PiP randomizer at work. Anne had no idea where Bonnie Tyler came into it, but she experienced the same growled sentiment, with one difference - Anne felt not yearning, but regret. She had not held out long enough.

Still. As her friend Millie had told her over dinner, there must be compensations for life's disappointments. Hand-picking your team from a pool of young and able men was surely one of them. Millie had fished for details of Athos, whose name she had spotted during Anne's texting with him over the profiteroles, but Anne had only smiled.

"He is my staff member," she said with great propriety, "and even if he were not, he is too private a person for me to intrude upon." It was indeed difficult to imagine Athos' personal life.

"You've thought about it, then," said Millie with a triumphant smile.

"He is a soldier. They all are. What would we talk about - guns?"

"Talk! I wasn't thinking about talk. He must not be handsome after all," Millie said.

"I don't look at my staff in that way," Anne said, thinking of the musketeers lounging in the canteen, bickering amiably between bouts of tackling armed terrorists to the ground. Aramis, peeling an apple with his penknife and a meaningful look. "And I'm married, remember?"

Millie sniffed. "Notionally."

Anne laughed. "You're terrible."

"And terribly good for you." Millie placed her hand over Anne's. "You can't be all work and no play."

Anne sighed, and shook her head to Millie's offer of more wine. "You're a sweetheart. But my work is very important to me."

Millie tried again to get Anne to admit to a fascination with one of her soldiers, but Anne turned the conversation to the charity work through which she and Millie had met. Millie was still a new acquaintance, and Anne was an old hand at avoiding compromising remarks.

Now, waiting by the Palace's main gate for a taxi, Anne twiddled with her phone and faded the volume. She had no time for self pity. There was too much to do, to decide.

D'Artagnan, for instance. D'Artagnan had created this music app, and had also detected its abuse. In the new world, his skills would be as valuable as old-style hand-to-hand combat or target practice. And Porthos had reported back that D'Artagnan was none too shabby at those either.

Yes, she must have D'Artagnan. It was just the kind of random hire she liked. It was not good to be predictable, and the unknown D'Artagnan would pose a puzzle to Anne's detractors, keeping them busy.

The moment Constance finished the background checks, Anne would make D'Artagnan an offer. And he would take it, anyone could see that. He was all pent-up energy and fiery youth.

Athos, Aramis and Porthos were her three key players as of now. One day, D'Artagnan might join them.

Anne's phone went silent again, cutting short Bonnie Tyler. She was not expecting a reply from Athos, and there was none. But the music stream from PiP had stopped.

Anne muttered, tried and failed to restart the thing, and then shoved the phone in her bag. She had an early meeting in the morning with the heads of various utility suppliers, for which Treville had dictated that she have an escort. Being followed around by a clutch of grim-faced men would be a PR disaster, as well as highly inconvenient. She had a good mind to give them the slip and make her own way to the hotel.

She sighed. She was tired. She always felt resentful and rebellious when she was tired. She would think about her meeting in the morning.

The musketeers would form her escort, and overcome any threat they encountered.

Though she hardly knew them as men, she had absolute faith in these three as her soldiers. And could Bonnie Tyler have said that?

Anne chuckled as she climbed into the muggy warmth of her cab. It was time for home, a comforting snuggle with the cat, a glass of Pinot Grigio, and bed.

 


	15. Now

**Docklands, London, 7th March, 11pm**

Eve was woken by a double-beep. By the time she surfaced to consciousness and an awareness of where she was - Athos' flat, high up in a glass Docklands tower, in the largest bed she had ever lain in - Athos was already in the shower, and Eve had time to register that it was not yet midnight, and that the name on Athos' phone was Anne. She looked at the phone without touching it. The message said, _Now_.

Oh.

Well, she had wondered how he could still be single.

There were no signs of a woman in his flat, though. Not one thing. No pink razor, no extra toothbrush, no sanitary products hidden in the bathroom cabinet. No shoes abandoned in the hall, no mysterious jumper on the back of a chair.

He did not act like a man who was attached. But then, he did not act like a man who was free.

She listened to the water run. She had swung it with work to operate from London this week. Her stuff was mostly virtual anyway. She was rarely out in the field, so here was as good as anywhere.

"I have to go out," Athos said, emerging from the bathroom, a towel tied around his waist. "I'll be an hour, perhaps two."

"Ok."

"Help yourself to anything." He gestured around, just fingertips, his eyes, as ever, low-lidded and cautious.

"Ok."

She didn't ask, but watched him pull from the wardrobe a charcoal suit, a fresh white shirt, a dark tie with an embroidered crest, gleaming black brogues.

He dressed, applying cufflinks and pocket square with meticulous grace.

He vanished into the en suite to brush his hair and, she realised when he reappeared, comb his beard.

Fully groomed, he could have been CEO of some international corporation. "You look like you might own an island," she said. "Somewhere sunny."

He smiled. "I only have a stake in this island, unfortunately."

"Your job not pay quite that well?"

"Not quite."

"Mine neither. Never mind, there's always wine."

Rain was buffetting the giant windows. Athos eyed the foul weather lashing the London night. Practicality dictated that he should don a fold-up anorak. Dignity precluded such a move - especially when a woman wearing only his dressing gown was watching him with unconcealed admiration.

_This is how it begins_ , he thought.  _I am weighing the merits of appearance against content._

He crossed to the bed swiftly and bent to kiss her. She was warm and smelled of the two of them. "I will be back shortly," he said.

"Good."

His mouth twitched. He made no attempt at reply. She closed her eyes, inviting him to kiss her again, which he did.

He really did not like compliments. No: he did not trust them. Well, lucky for him she was not one of life's flatterers.

He left, car keys dangling from his right hand. Eve only saw the fob for a moment, but it featured in gold a very distinctive double 'R'.

Interesting.

She propped herself against the pillows and took up her phone. Might as well check in on work while she was awake.

Pleasure would just have to wait.

 


	16. Vigilance

The venue for the Energy Security Summit was one of those rambling old buildings in the middle of London, spared by the Blitz, yet not by the mania of modernisation which followed the War. Now, ghastly forty-year-old decor was smeared over the remnants of a grand Victorian house, and several extensions only added to the dismal effect.

Aramis drew the short straw and Athos placed him on exit planning duty, far beyond reach of Anne should the PiP messages prove right. Porthos was stationed at the conference room door. Athos was prowling the hotel, alert to threats. D'Artagnan, the outsider, was at Starbucks, on brew duty.

The delegates milled about in the hotel's gleaming foyer, consuming complimentary coffee and croissants. Welcome packs adorned the reception desk, along with laminated name badges. Anne, as host, waited at the podium, ready for the introductions. All this and it was not even eight in the morning.

Aramis familiarised himself with all the hotel's exits and devised the requisite number of escape options. He was in a stairwell checking that all routes were clear, when his phone trilled.

Athos' face appeared, pale and set. "I know what Brokenstone is," he said at once.

Aramis stopped, felt for his gun. It was in its holster, reassuringly solid. In a world of fickle loyalties, a lethal weapon made choices simple and immediate. He sometimes wondered if this was a sign that he was not suited to civilian life. Weren't you supposed to find home, family reassuring? But he never had. "Brokenstone! What is it?"

"We're in it." Athos pointed his phone away and Aramis saw bright grey sky. The phone swivelled past hurrying commuters and onto the front of their hotel. "Look," said Athos. He aimed the phone at the facade and Aramis saw the shattered word,  _Brokenstone_. "I saw it the other night and didn't recognise it."

Aramis wondered why Athos had previously been here. He shelved the thought. Anne Osterley was here now and so were a lot of globally significant people. "Are you going to stop the summit?" he asked, already heading back up the fire exit stairs towards the deep carpets of the conference suite.

"No," said Athos, calm as always. "We don't know if this is the target or the source."

Their duty was to protect Anne, but Aramis did not argue with Athos. Instead he considered. "Those power bosses, they tend to come with some pretty heavy help. Are the Russians there? "

"Yes."

"The Ukrainians?"

"And the Brazilians." Athos raised one eyebrow. "So?"

"I'll set them on extra alert. Their setup is better funded than ours." Aramis was bounding up the stairs, phone in hand, his open jacket flying.

"Try not to trigger an international incident," said Athos.

"I am the soul of discretion." Dozens of women could attest to that.

Athos gave him a skeptical look, but said only, "I will search for more information. You signal to the minister to postpone the start so we can talk. Oh," said Athos, as Aramis was about to cut the connection. "Get D'Artagnan back here."

"D'Artagnan?"

"I missed half a dozen calls from him last night, and I haven't had a chance to speak to him this morning. He may have found something."

"Ok. Where were you last night?"

"Occupied. Fetch Anne. "

Interesting. "Right."

He ran.

* * *

Anne absolutely refused to stop the summit.

"It could be a bomb," Athos had said in the Disabled toilet where they had held their emergency conference.

"It's not a bomb," said Anne. "The message said six hundred. It's way past that time now."

"I'm not inclined to trust the messages of terrorists," said Aramis. He was staring intently at Anne, D'Artagnan noticed, as if by willpower alone he could make her take the safest decision.

But Anne was not motivated by safety. She pursed her lips and gave Aramis the stare right back, doubled. "It damages us too much if we cannot keep our own security summit secure! We would be playing straight into their hands!" She clenched her fists, but there was no room in here for enraged gesticulation.

D'Artagnan spoke. "Don't stop the summit," he said. "Move rooms. Just insist for some obscure reason - ecological soundness. Anything. Move again at the next break. At least then the attackers won't be able to use what they've already planned."

"A reasonable idea," said Athos, "given we have no idea of the source or even plausibility of this message from PiP." He cast a look at D'Artagnan, and it was like falling under a spotlight in a darkened theatre. Athos' steady gaze allowed no shirking from duty or unpleasant truths. D'Artagnan stared back and hoped he passed muster.

So the room was swapped around while the delegates drank more free coffee, and Anne took deep breaths and thought,  _Not a bomb, not a bomb_  and allowed Porthos to escort her all the way into the new room.

Aramis took up position behind Anne's chair. Porthos went off to join the others in scouring the building.

One of the conference organisers stood at the main doors as the delegates, and their security, came in. She ticked them off a list and made sure they had their welcome packs. Aramis registered that she was very attractive, if you liked a femme fatale kind of thing, which he did. But he was working.

Anne rise to begin her speech of welcome. Tension in the room rose sharply as the security people all scanned the space for danger. But nothing happened and Aramis' brain went to auto vigilance, checking and rechecking the situation while part of him was admitting that these days, cute conference girl or not, he preferred warm brown hair to drop-dead black -

"Let's begin," said Anne, gazing with a serene smile around the room. "I'll take you through our programme for today."

She ripped open her envelope.

 


	17. Brokenstone

Porthos gave the storecupboard door a swift elbow and it caved. Fluorescent lights glinted on his studded leather as he glanced inside. "Just stationery," he said.

They were getting desperate now. D'Artagnan had relayed to Athos the plea for help found in his PiP code, but Athos had only been disappointed that it was not something immediately useful. So it was back to searching the hotel.

There was limited time. Athos had wanted to evacuate the building, and it was clear that soon he was going to overrule Anne and give the order.

D'Artagnan frowned. "What's it doing here?" There were stacks of Energy Summit brochures, piled up higgledy-piggledy on a shelf.

Porthos shrugged. "Spare copies?"

D'Artagnan looked at the glossy brochures. "These are personalised. Look." He showed Porthos the name of each attendee, printed on the programme cover.

"They changed their minds about using them?" But Porthos was no more convinced than D'Artagnan.

D'Artagnan flipped through a brochure. "Nothing special about them. I mean, no obvious flaws. They haven't spelled the word  _energy_  wrong on the cover or anything."

"So why swap them?"

D'Artagnan glanced up. "What do you mean?"

"Well. The delegates all had brochures in their welcome packs. Just not these ones. So what's wrong with these ones?"

D'Artagnan drew breath sharply."We're asking the wrong question," he said. He grabbed a brochure. "It's not what's wrong with these ones. It's what's wrong with the others. Come on!"

They raced to the foyer. The receptionist now presided over a table holding just two or three welcome packs.

D'Artagnan grabbed one, ignoring the evil look from the receptionist.

"Hey! It's bad enough one of you lot nicking them!" she protested.

"What's that?" asked Porthos.

The girl shrugged. "Your mate. He got a call from someone. Take up a spare for the minister's PA."

D'Artagnan and Porthos exchanged glances. "Anne hasn't got a PA," said Porthos.

D'Artagnan ripped open the envelope. Energy-themed knick knacks fell to the floor. As D'Artagnan bent to pick them up, the conference programme slipped out too, its pages opening - and D'Artagnan got a lungful of something sickly sweet, and the world slid out from under his boots.

Porthos caught him, kicked the brochure aside, yelled to the receptionist to open the door.

D'Artagnan gasped in grainy London air and had never been so glad to taste the pollution. "Toxin," he croaked. "Felt - numb."

"All the delegates have got these," Porthos said.

D'Artagnan clambered to his feet. The receptionist was standing with her hands pressed over her mouth and nose. "Which one of us took the spare copy?" he demanded.

"The miserable one."

"Athos," said D'Artagnan and Porthos together.

"You tell Aramis," D'Artagnan said. "Warn the delegates. I'll find Athos."

* * *

Every security person in the room moved at once, but Aramis was at Anne's side before she could open her mouth to gasp. He had her around the waist and was lifting her towards the fire exit as around the conference table a dozen two-hundred-and-fifty pound men tackled delegates half that weight to the carpet.

Anne had been given training in being protected. There were rules. Trust your detail. Do what they say even if it seems odd. Do not quibble or start making suggestions. Do not under any circumstances be a hero.

As Aramis carried her into a concrete stairwell, set her down and said, "Downstairs, now," Anne had no intention of arguing with him. She had a foul taste in her mouth and her eyes stung. Her throat rasped. Behind them there was a hubbub of tables overturning, and shouts.

"This way," said Aramis, furious but calm.

He grasped her hand and hustled her rapidly down three flights of stairs. Kicked open the fire exit and tugged her through it without breaking pace. In the grimy courtyard outside he ducked between the giant cylinder bins, Anne in tow, and applied a further kick to a wooden gate

Through a cobbled alley and along a gloomy back street Aramis chivvied Anne along at a quick march, until Anne blinked and realised that they were almost at Old Street Tube station.

Aramis did not look back.

"It wasn't a bomb," Anne said. "It was poison -" She was conscious of the back of her head, vulnerable, exposed. She expected a blast still, flying glass and shred of paper every moment. But who needed a bomb when you could fell an entire room with poisoned pages?

Aramis ignored her comment and said, "Keep going. You know the plan. Can you run in those?" He gestured at her kitten heels.

"I can run in wedges!"

"Then come on."

* * *

Athos knew what he held at the same moment its effects began to take hold. He cast the brochure away from him and leapt back, but the drug was in his throat.

He staggered in the bright bleak service corridor, clutching his neck, and tried to think where the nearest window would be, for air, clean air.

There was not much time. Every second compromised him. Every breath drew the dust deeper into his lungs, stopping up the airways -

He barged the nearest door but found himself in a cramped kitchen. Beige fridge, cracked kettle, plastic counter stained with coffee rings, but no window.

His legs were giving way. In mere moments he would pass beyond the point where his brain could recover from oxygen deprivation.

He flung out his arm towards the kitchen sink. Water. Would water help, or only drown him? What was it like to feel liquid in your lungs, see city lights glittering on the black waves and know that no rescue could reach you across the strait before betrayal engulfed you?

"You!"

A woman's voice, shrill with shock.

Athos swung round, chest heaving, and saw a slim figure in a corporate suit, face obscured by an oxygen mask. She stood on the kitchen threshold, frozen in a attitude of horror.

"What are you doing here," she said, and he knew her voice, would have known it anywhere, would have known it in hell, which if it existed was where he expected to end his time.

He called out her name, his voice hoarse, his vision blurring, and she flinched back. "I never meant this," she said.

He clutched at the fridge for support and it toppled and then he may have shut his eyes because when he blinked the fridge was falling onto him, a slab of metal with the many plastic bottles of milk sliding off their racks and through the opening fridge door -

As he crashed to the linoleum he looked into the fridge and thought,  _The light is on, but soon there will be no one here to see it. The waves are closing over my face but I haven't done enough yet._ "Tom," he said, and blacked out.

 


	18. The Woman

Athos dreamed of a boy, an open-hearted boy with bright brown eyes and a swaggering belief in his own supremacy. They were walking beside a roiling sea and Athos' face was wet. The boy smiled, and turned, and fell from a high building, and as he fell his mouth formed Athos' name, but his face was not that of the boy Athos knew, but of the newcomer, D'Artagnan.

* * *

 

D'Artagnan ran. Athos' body lay at the distant end of the service corridor, in a pool of liquid.  The strip lights showed only the gleam of fluid and not if it was water, or blood. He feared what he would see when he reached his companion, but still he ran.

The air smelled of the poison, but D'Artagnan had been opening windows as he went. Some of the frames had been painted over and he'd forced them, cracking ancient paint. Someone would have a job of it to fix the mess. The things you think as you approach a death.

D'Artagnan dropped to his knees in the final yards and skidded stumbled towards Athos, calling his name.

The liquid drenching Athos was water. And, weirdly, milk. Not blood. "Athos!"

He bent over the prone form and rolled it towards him. And Athos groaned.

"Athos!"

Now D'Artagnan was more careful. Why had he moved him? You shouldn't move an injured person, that was basic first aid, how stupid he was, no wonder Athos did not trust him.

D'Artagnan began to check pulse, breathing, airways, brushing aside a squashed plastic mask on the floor.

Athos' hand shot out and gripped D'Artagnan's wrist. "Who is it," he said, his voice rough. His eyes were squeezed shut and milk smeared his face and neck. But he was alive.

"D'Artagnan." D'Artagnan's voice cracked and tears sprang into his eyes, startling him. He blinked them away - stupid relief - and ran his hands carefully over Athos' face and neck. "You've been unconscious, don't move -"

"I'm fine." Athos wrenched himself up and sat. He fell sideways and  began coughing so violently that he retched. D'Artagnan caught him.

They stayed, D'Artagnan awkwardly kneeling, holding Athos by the shoulders, Athos swaying and drooping.

"I'll get the others." Chaos had erupted in D'Artagnan's wake as Porthos yelled the warning. The conference suite was a melee of panicked shouts. But down here it was silent and chill.

"No. Not them just you."

"You need help, Aramis knows what to do -"

"Aramis should be far away now, with the minister. Just you," Athos said again.

"All right." Athos looked so frail, what could D'Artagnan say? "Let me look at you."

"It's nothing. Is Anne safe?" Athos scrabbled weakly for his phone. D'Artagnan retrieved it.

"Porthos and Aramis were with her." D'Artagnan held the phone as Athos unlocked it with trembling fingers and read messages.

Athos sank back, letting the phone drop, and allowed D'Artagnan to check for bones broken in the fall, and particularly, head wounds. D'Artagnan could not have said why, but the idea of Athos incapable, his dry humour lost to mental damage, was just as bad as the idea of him dead.

At last he was satisfied that any injuries were, as Athos said, inconsequential.

"Give me a drink," Athos said, flinging out an arm. "There's a kitchen..."

D'Artagnan saw an elderly fridge, on its side. "You're in shock. Alcohol won't help."

"Thought Aramis was the expert? Anyway, I mean water." Athos' colour was returning.

D'Artagnan fetched water. In the kitchen, a drenched brochure lay in the sink.

"What happened?" D'Artagnan asked as Athos swigged cool water.

"The woman," Athos said. He rubbed his hands over his face.

"What woman?"

"There was a woman," Athos said.


	19. Macau

**Macau, Special Administrative Region, China. Five years ago.**

The night was humid, the air heavy with recent rain, which still lay in puddles along the modern concrete quayside. The cafes had their doors open, urging in last-minute trade before the tide took the ferry. The boat itself was white-lit and bustling, its gangway rattling in the brisk water of the straits.

Inside the best of the waterside eateries, fairy lights poked between the glossy leaves of potted plants, and rattan chairs attempted to recall the glory of empire. A mix of Portuguese and Han competed with the pop songs squawking from the radio.

Three people occupied a table crowded with empty glasses.

"You didn't need to come," said Charlotte.

"Nevertheless I have," Athos said.

His brother chuckled. "You are insufferable! First you say your wife can be my cover, then you insist on coming with her in case something should go wrong."

"Nothing will go wrong," said Charlotte. "I feel I have been waiting my whole life for today."

She threw Tom a glance which made him frown, and turn his face back to Athos.

"There is no backup," said Athos, "once you enter China."

"I know." Charlotte smiled.

"The government will deny the existence of the mission." Athos spoke low, but distinctly. He wished to be perfectly understood.

"Yes. I know."

"The unit will not try to get you out -"

"I know! Please stop fussing."

"But - if anything happens -" Charlotte rolled her eyes in exasperation - "I will be here. In an unofficial capacity. I am on leave from the unit." Athos knocked back the last of the excellent brandy and placed this latest tumbler with the rest.

Tom looked at his brother and nodded.

A man in waiter's dress approached their table, a white serviette draped over his arm. "Lady Delafere?"

Charlotte nodded.

"A phone call, milady," said the man. She nodded at him, and rose.

"Don't be long," said Tom. "The ferry leaves in ten minutes."

"You're such a worrier," Charlotte said. She smiled, and Tom smiled back, and then they both glanced at Athos. Charlotte, Lady Delafere, slipped her arm around Tom Delafere's waist and nestled her head in the crook of his neck. "What do you think of our married act?" she asked Athos, laughing, her head tilted back, showing off her perfect skin and the sapphire necklace Athos had given her on their wedding day. "Is it convincing?"

"My brother thinks marriage is a serious business," Tom said before Athos could speak. "Laughter doesn't feature."

"Oh, he has his moments," Charlotte said, reaching her hand towards Athos and stopping an inch shy of touching his arm. "But he has a secretive nature. He is not trusting and open like you, Tom."

"Only of necessity," Athos said.

"Are you saying I can't do my job?" Tom demanded, making a logical leap which Athos had not intended.

"No. You're a very good operative. You know I'm proud of you."

"So sweet," Charlotte said. "But I must take that call. See you on the quayside, darling."

She smiled her winning smile, the smile which had brought her from the kitchen staff at Delafere Chase to Athos' side for strolls in the grounds, then into his bed and finally up the aisle of his private chapel. It was a smile full of intimate promise, and Athos could not tell, here on the other side of the world with Tom grinning and the light sparkling like diamonds on the black water which separated Macau from China, who that smile was for.

He bade them farewell and watched the ferry leave. And a month later, when he was becoming anxious about their mission, and had been disciplined for exceeding his leave, a soldier from the unit appeared at Athos' hotel room to tell him that there had been a riverboat incident, that the mission was compromised, and that his brother and wife were dead.

 

* * *

 

"You couldn't have done anything," D'Artagnan said.

"I could have stopped him going," Athos said.

D'Artagnan frowned.

Athos' phone buzzed. "Well, I must move," Athos said. He got to his feet, pretending not to see D'Artagnan's offered arm. His lungs were clear again. Either the toxin had been non lethal or - her actions had saved him.

Her. Alive. Was he going insane? The poison may have led him to hallucinate. He naturally thought of Tom at a time of crisis. From Tom to her was but a step.

"Where did you get the mask?" D'Artagnan asked, holding up a transparent plastic breather.

Athos stared. Then he took out his handkerchief, wrapped the mask with it, and slipped them inside his jacket. "I'm needed. Go to LOUIS. Get Constance to check out those new messages."

D'Artagnan nodded, but behind the nonchalance Athos could plainly see the pride. _You are just like him. You want to be tough but you are so eager to please._

They parted, Athos calculating how much time had elapsed and whether the standard plan would still work, D'Artagnan seeming puzzled.

Athos smiled bitterly. _You don't understand. Of course. I lose my brother and my wife and you wonder why I only mourn my brother._ He lifted his hand in farewell and D'Artagnan sprinted away up the stairs to the conference suite, leaving Athos to find the fire exit, and some welcome daylight.


	20. Rainwater

"In we go, just as if nothing is happening." Aramis applied an Oystercard twice to the turnstile and led Anne to the escalators.

"What about the others?" Anne clutched the black handrail and through sheer London habit began marching mechanically down the steps. The fluorescent lights down here were harsh. Anne felt detached from everything: the people, the crisis she was fleeing, the fact that she was descending into the secret London that rushes constantly beneath the streets.

"It's all in hand." At the bottom of the escalator, he led her through the commuter crowd and onto the platform. "Get on the last carriage here," he said, as the twin lights of the train materialised in the tunnel. "Get off two stops down, go straight up the stairs at the end of the platform, left and onto the Piccadilly line, and get on the next southbound train."

"Why are you telling me?" She allowed herself to be drawn onto the train in the surge of commuters. People crowded in all around them. Aramis was still holding her hand and now she was squashed up against him and the pole in the centre of the car.

"In case we get separated," he said. There did not seem much chance of that. He slipped his hand free and put his arm around her waist, pulling her tight against him.

She opened her mouth to ask.

"Smaller target," he said.

She had a face full of leather collar and her nose was in his jaw, tickled by beard. He smelled of leather, and fresh cream.

"And it helps prevent you being recognised," he whispered, his breath warm in her hair.

"I see," she said, trying to maintain professional iciness. Her hips were jammed up against his and a sheet of Parliamentary A4 could not have fit between them.

"One more thing -" He sent her a look which may have asked for permission, then his fingers were unfastening her chignon. She put her hand up and retrieved the clip, shaking her hair out over his sleeve. She glanced up at him as golden brown strands curled over the chestnut leather, and caught his surprise: indrawn breath, lips parted.

His eyes darted away at once. He shifted his body away from her slightly. "Hang on to me, it looks more believable," he said.

The train moved off with a jolt and Anne staggered and flung her arms around Aramis' waist.

"That's good," he said, "but leave my arms free. I might need to shoot someone."

She flinched. His expression turned sober at once. "I'm sorry. You're not used to this. I was being flippant."

"It's all right."

"You're as safe as I can make you," he said, and she was squeezed closer for a moment. "I won't let anyone get to you. I promise."

He peered into her eyes, projecting earnestness, and she saw competence and care before he snapped away, on full alert as before.

How could she deserve such protection? Of course, it was not personal, he worked to preserve the mission and not her. But his hand was splayed between her shoulder-blades and he was wound up tight, far from the affectation of nonchalance usually on display.

She clung to him as the carriage swayed, and tried to recall the Tube map, and dignity.

 

* * *

 

They made two more turnaround train changes until at last they were in the long tunnel between Monument and Bank. On the map these stations are joined, but on the ground they are streets apart. The crowds had vanished as commuters clocked on all over the City.

"Wear this." He placed his jacket around her shoulders.

"More subterfuge." The leather was heavy on her body, like the eiderdown in an expensive hotel. He wore a loose white shirt, and various whipcord necklaces.

"It might make an assassin hesitate," he said.

"Where are we going?"

"Up and out." He gestured at the ceiling. "There shouldn't be trouble, but anyway, I am armed."

She thought about her hair, the danger, Aramis, the press: what if she was snapped emerging from the Tube, hair loose, in the care of this handsome secret soldier, first thing in the morning?

"Don't worry," he said. "Athos will have the car."

Aramis hurried her past the start of the travelator and to a niche in the white tiled wall. A place where a poster had been removed, leaving a mess of backing paper and incomplete words. Aramis looked around. They were alone.

He ran his thumb along the edge of the poster frame, and the niche resolved into a door. Anne blinked. The paper, the mess, were carefully applied so that the exit was invisible unless you knew to expect it. The door opened outwards. Aramis checked again that they were alone in the passage, then bundled Anne inside. She saw a tiny white space, taller than it was wide, and then the door clanged shut.

She squeaked as the world went black.

Then red light outlined an inch square in the wall, and the lift moved upwards. "Oh!"

"Handy eh?" said Aramis.

"Yes," she said. Of course LOUIS could access the emergency network. It formed part of the plan to keep the country going should infrastructure fail. There were tunnels, bunkers, power stations - but this was the first she had experienced in person, rather than on a PowerPoint in a comfortable office.

She felt oddly proud of Aramis, and all of them. They had the knowledge and the skills, and most importantly, the ability to apply them to a situation, without notice. Athos with the car - this was a prearranged plan, then.

She would be very glad to see Athos,and the others. -She would be very glad to see daylight, and find out what was happening.

The idea that it was almost over disarmed her. She was shaking. The lift was wobbling but nothing compared to her stomach.

They were in total darkness, the floor unsteady. She reached out her hand to find Aramis, and her fingers touched his.

At once he took her hand, and drew her to him. She couldn't see anything, but his heart beat rapidly against hers.

Bank is a very deep station. The escalators are some of the longest in the whole system and a lift ride is a slow journey.

Anne leaned her temple to Aramis' warm cheek. His arms fastened round her. Then she knew that this was inevitable, now or tomorrow or next year, as long as he was near.

She rested her lips against his neck. He tasted wonderful, like rainwater collected in coconut shells on the deck of a ship long becalmed. His fingers were tentative along her cheek. In the dark she would never know what his eyes said, but she was growing warm against his chest and his heart beat like a stone trapped in a barrel, rolling downhill.

In moments the lift jarred again and they were at the top. As a crack of light appeared and grew at the top of the door, Aramis pulled away and stood staunchly at her side. Anne touched her mouth - was her lipstick smeared? and did not dare glance across at Aramis.

They were six inches apart as the door swung open.

Athos stood there, stern, his hand at his hip as fluorescent light drenched them. Anne thought he gave Aramis a particularly searching look, but when she turned, Aramis was all cool professionalism, hustling her towards Athos and safety.

In the armoured Rolls Royce, she sat between Aramis and Porthos, her knees against theirs, and Aramis did not look her way once.

Athos drove, fingertip control on the wheel through crushing traffic, and she saw him several times in the mirror, trying and failing to catch Aramis' eye.


	21. Unnoticed

The Press went wild. Anne had never been so famous. Early dreams of getting her name in the papers for her outstanding contribution to humanity had not come to fruition.

But today she was the talk of every tabloid, broadsheet and broadcast in the UK.

Porthos got his face in too, usually captioned Hero Saves Energy Moguls or similar. But the money shots were mostly taken over Porthos' shoulder, of men and women bent double on the carpet, coughing their guts up.

The sole picture of Anne at the scene was of her back, recognisable only by what she was wearing, as Aramis bundled her through the fire exit. The back of his head was mercifully anonymous.

The Press had dragged up stock photos of Anne to illustrate their full colour spreads, and remind an enquiring public which one she was. A range of old pictures appeared, of Anne in various silk suits, looking different degrees of frumpy - even, oh God, some of those bloody wedding pictures.

She studied them with masochisstic fascination. Why did she wear such buttoned-down stuff?

-Because there were only two ways for a woman in business to dress - as if going to a wedding or going to a funeral. She favoured wedding, but God, she looked like the mother of the bride.

All this time she'd been kidding herself she added a dash of silken glamour to the chamber. She just looked desperate. And miserable.

Maybe it was time for an image change. The mission was almost complete. Once it was, then frankly the threats could come as thick and fast as they might: she would be ready.

"Constance," she said as Constance appeared with a tablet and a pot of coffee, "do I look kick arse to you?"

Constance considered. She put the pot down and poured a cup for Anne. "How big is the arse?"

Anne laughed. Shook her head. Time to move on. Plus, there was no escaping the fact that Constance could kick the arse of anyone in this building and she generally wore flip flips. Although not today. Today she was in black jeans and a sloppy black jumper. Her face was white and sad.

"You have coffee too," Anne said, pointing at the pot. "Have you been up all night?"

"No. D'Artagnan came down at three and made me sleep." On the sofa. He'd just brought down his own duvet and draped it round her as she sat typing, then left.

"He's a good kid," Anne said. "Porthos said he got everyone in the hotel organised in a flash."

"He did first aid," Constance said.

"Coffee," said Anne.

Constance obeyed.

"So," said Anne, "how bad is it?"

"No one has spotted it," said Constance.

Anne began to reply.

But Constance clapped her hand to her mouth and looked up at the ceiling.

Anne blinked twice and said, "Thank God. I don't want the press thinking the Grecian 2000 is a regular thing."

"It was never Grecian 2000," said Constance, her face showing relief as she mimed Sorry.

"It was Clairol," said Anne. "God, Constance, this coffee is bitter. I'll get more from the canteen. Come on, we've more to go through than my disastrous hair colour."

They left quickly and Constance said in the lift, "I just forgot - I'm a bit sluggish this morning - I'm sorry -"

"Forget it," said Anne. "They'll never know. But is it true, nobody's twigged?"

"Not yet. But with so much exposure, some journalist is bound to start digging around, finding out what you do, even if only to plump up a piece which is basically about what shoes you wear."

"Oh my God," said Anne, "it would be terrible to be exposed by  _Hello_  magazine."

"There's one more vote," said Constance.

"But it's after Dog Leap," said Anne. "And given we utterly failed to prevent Brokenstone, I don't feel too good about the other two."

"Athos will fix it," Constance said as the lift doors opened. "He always does."

"He's a treasure," said Anne. She glanced at Constance, but her aide's admiration for Athos, though touching, appeared entirely professional.

"They all are," said Constance. "By the way." She put her hand on Anne's sleeve before they crossed the corridor to the bright busy canteen. "There's a bit of footage of you and Aramis in the Tube system."

Anne went hot and cold all over. "Right."

"Do you want me to just remove it? We're within our rights - your safety, national security and so on."

"Yes," said Anne faintly. "Thanks."

"No problem. At the moment everyone thinks you just got in the car outside."

"That's logical."

"Yes. Just not quite enough for our scenario, though. A good dry run, though, right?"

Anne thought of Aramis, his arms around her, properly round her, her clinging to him likewise, her mouth on his jaw, a hair's breadth from an actual kiss but there was no way he had failed to notice.

And God yes if she were in a pitch black lift with him again and had the slightest excuse to kiss him she would because now her biggest regret was not that she had behaved in a way not concomitant with a minister (pah!) but that she had been offered a chance to know his kiss and not taken it.

"Yes," Anne said. "A dry run."

Constance nodded, her expression prim. Anne was grateful, as always, for her discretion.

As Constance's cool gaze turned to the musketeers lounging on their corner table, she took it down further to well below freezing. Especially, Anne noted, as D'Artagnan looked up and smiled, his dark hair falling over his warm brown eyes.

Constance ignored him completely and spoke to Athos. D'Artagnan grinned all the more and fiddled with his phone.

Anne hung back watching until Constance snapped and said "I've set a trace on your messages."

"Thank you," he said with a grace Anne would never have expected.

"Don't get your hopes up. It's probably one of our many enemies, yanking the chain of the new boy."

D'Artagnan smiled.

"Not so new," said Athos. "D'Artagnan's one of us now."

"We need all the help we can get," said Anne. "Dog Leap is in ten days' time. Athos. You said you saw a woman at the scene. Find her."

Athos went still. "Yes, ma'am."

D'Artagnan cast an anxious glance at Athos which puzzled Anne. Athos ignored the look. Anne made a mental note.

"I don't like how easily they got to us yesterday," she said. "We have ten days. Find out who is behind the messages. And stop them."

 


	22. Daquiri

Milady was peaches-sweet and intense like strong drink swallowed too quickly. Daquiri, D'Artagnan thought. She was a strawberry daquiri. Syrupy, not even a flavour he liked and dangerously intoxicating, yet impossible to give up.

"How do I know this isn't another way to steal from me?" he asked.

She writhed in his arms, spreading herself over his torso. "Because I think you just gave me everything I could ever want." She gave a catlike smile and rubbed her fingers through the fine hair on his chest.

"Flattery", he said, "I'm not so easily won over," but he allowed her to caress him.

"Aren't you pleased you ran into me?" she asked. "I would have thought you'd be pleased."

D'Artagnan thought about that. She'd clutched his arm as he emerged from the lift at Camden Town, exclaiming, "D'Artagnan!" and giving every sign of delight at running into him.

His head had been full of Dog Leap and Athos' story about his dead brother and Milady stealing his phone seemed an age ago. "What are you doing here?"

"Been visiting a friend who's had a rough day. What about you?"

"I'm staying near here," he said, reluctant to give away more.

"Let's have a drink," she said. She turned her green eyes up to him, and in spite of himself D'Artagnan experienced a thrill of pure sexual anticipation.

"You're a thief," he said, detaching her hand from his arm. She wore gloves, he saw. Black satin gloves, like some pastiche of a Victorian moll. Her dress was black too, trimmed with blood-red ribbon.

"Oh, that. A mistake. I thought you were someone else. A friend of my ex. Stupid." She laughed, a sound like the bells on a yuletide tree in the far Scandinavian north, a frozen tree bound with snow and laden with the husks of rich fruits saved over from summer. "Forgive me." She stood charmingly on tiptoe to kiss his cheek. A scent of warm jasmine and ancient spice wafted from her skin.

"One drink," said D'Artagnan. "And that's it."

She linked arms with him. "I know a place near here."

She obviously knew exactly what one drink would lead to...

Now she smirked up at Constance's polystyrene ceiling tiles and said, "I could have just picked your pocket, you know. To get your phone."

"So why didn't you?" Her skin was incredible. Everywhere her body touched his, sparks went off in his brain. And his groin.

"Because of this, silly." Milady ran her palm from D'Artagnan 's throat to his navel. He shuddered, and clutched at her. He liked to think he had a few moves of his own. Finding this kissable spot on her neck, for example. "Mmn... Anyway, my employers don't care how I get the job done so long as I do."

She froze then, and D'Artagnan blinked rapidly. Yes. Her employers. Not 'a friend of her ex'. He too should be using this time to extract information from her. Her associates had put Trace in hospital.

He put this to her, moving her hand aside as she went to continue her exploration of his body.

"What men," she said, bending to kiss his chest.

"The fight. They beat up my friend."

She shrugged, her mouth still on his skin. "I don't know what you're talking about."

He reflected on this. It was possible. "So why did you both want my phone?"

She sighed, and sat up, her hair loose around her shoulders. "Why do you think the men who mugged your friend wanted your phone?"

"They took it."

"No, they didn't. You got it back." She raised her eyebrows. "If I steal a phone, it stays stolen."

Her story was all over the place. "Yeah. Where is my phone?"

She rolled her eyes. "I threw it in the canal when I realised you were nothing to do with my ex."

The lie again. She was made of lies. Yet she was richly delicious too. "So what about these employers? Did they get you to steal it or not?"

She sighed, put her finger to his lips, and said, "Let's just be glad we found each other. Hmmm?"

"But -"

Milady kissed him, then applied her own lips where he could not fail to notice. And immediately the questions did not seem so important after all.

* * *

They were woken by the slam of the front door. Constance, with Kev, D'Artagnan deduced: he knew the sound of her flip flops in the hall, and only Kev gave the front door such a wallop every single time.

"Who's that," Milady asked, sitting up.

"My ... landlady," said D'Artagnan . He reached for a shirt. His jeans and briefs were all the way over by the door, as far away as Milady could fling them. "And her bloke."

Milady jumped out of bed and began slithering, naked, into her black dress. "I have to leave."

"It's ok," said D'Artagnan . "I don't think there's a no girlfriend rule."

"No," she said. "I've got to get out of here. Distract them, I'll slip past." She was already sliding her feet into her high heeled boots.

"Stay," he said. "I'll make us a cup of tea."

"You're sweet, and we must do this again, soon, but I have to go."

He caught her in his arms to kiss her but she escaped. "It's no big deal," he said. "Just come downstairs."

"All right. You go down first, get the kettle on. I'll be down in a minute, I just need the bathroom."

She gave him a sweet smile and placed her hand with great unsubtlety on his crotch. "I will be back, don't worry."

"Great." So long as he remembered not to trust her, it really could be great. A bit of harmless fun.

D'Artagnan jogged down two flights of stairs and found Constance in the kitchen, frowning at her tablet, and Kev opening cupboards with a disgusted air. "You never have anything in," Kev said to Constance.

D'Artagnan looked at the stacks of tins and packets. There was patently a wealth of food in the house. If Kev was not such a lazy arse.

Now was not the time for vocal criticism, though. And Constance looked as if she already had a headache. "I'll put the kettle on," D'Artagnan said. "You having one?"

"Thanks," she said, with a weak smile.

"No problem."

He dashed back upstairs to fetch Milady, but she wasn't in the bedroom. He checked the bathroom - empty. He looked in the downstairs loo, but found only a faint scent of jasmine and a wide open window, swinging mockingly to and fro.

* * *

"Dammit."

Constance looked up from her desk in the big white data lab to see Athos sitting on a closed crate, with his head in his hands.

She narrowed her eyes. Athos was cool and calm. He rarely betrayed any emotion at all, barring a light cynicism which would have been amusing but for the bitterness it concealed.

"Sorry," he added, without looking up.

"Dog Leap," she said. She switched off her monitor but did not get up. She had known Athos a while, but his manner forbade familiarity.

"Yes."

"It's doing my head in as well.". She had been staring at the same thin thread of information for two weeks and it had led them no further. Dog Leap meant many things but none of them could be found to have any link to terrorism. So far they were working on the basis that, like the earlier clues, Dog Leap was the location for the launch of an attack.

It was not looking promising. It was looking a lot like they would be once again completely humiliated in their efforts to protect the country.

"Maybe we should hand over to the Home Office," she said. "Maybe we are just kidding ourselves."

"No." Athos stood and came across the room to her. "This is not about terrorism This is about continuity after terrorism."

She gasped. "Are you saying we should let it happen?"

"No! I'm saying that if the Home Office get involved they will wreck our plans for infrastructure protection. Road blocks, no-fly zones, brownouts. They go in with a hammer to crack a walnut and we don't have a chance to do what we need to do."

"That might be the scenario we have to work with," she said.

"Yes. But not if we have a choice." Athos shook his head, grimacing.

"So you're saying we sacrifice innocent people in order to test the viability of our plan?"

The lab door opened with a high tech swish. D'Artagnan walked in - and stopped when he saw the horror in Constance's face, and the stony stare she was getting back from Athos.

"Of course not," said Athos. "But Dog Leap is not until next week. We have time to work it out."

He got up and stalked away.

Constance rose too and paced to the far end of the room and back.

"Bad time," D'Artagnan said.

Constance lifted her arms and let them drop.

D'Artagnan frowned. "I just don't get it. These attacks. They're ... half hearted. They're designed to look like a threat to infrastructure but really they've been pretty easy to stop."

"We didn't though did we? We barely had a chance to use any protocol." She gave her computer a baleful state.

D'Artagnan knew without being told that Constance had designed the protocol.

"And the methods. It's like they can't even get their story straight." Constance heaved a sigh.

D'Artagnan clutched her arm. "Their story. That's it!" He beamed at her. "I've got to go."

She glanced from his hand on her bare arm to his smiling face, bewildered. "And what exactly does that mean?"

"It means that I don't think we have to worry about Dog Leap," D'Artagnan said. "I'll see you tomorrow. I think I have a lead." He spun away, his long hair flying.

"Where are you off to?" she shouted after him. "D'Artagnan!"

"Sorry," he called. "I've got a date."

* * *

**Author's note** : the Musketeers are back. Updates will resume, regularly if not frequently. Thanks for reading. -Sef

 


	23. Black Paper Heart

Aramis pulled off the shooting glasses and reloaded his pistol. Five shots out of six in a textbook grouping, and the target begged a perfect set. He would achieve it. He would stand here until he did.

He had the time, he had the inclination, and since LOUIS gave them all special dispensation, he had the opportunity. It was ideal, except for the fact that he kept missing with the final shot.

He loaded and checked the gun, working to the steady rhythm of his own heartbeat, which boomed in his ears thanks to the ear defenders. That sound, and the deserted shooting gallery, lent a certain poetic quality to the scene. A man alone, seeking perfection, only the vagaries of machine and muscle preventing its achievement-

A flash of colour to his left had him clasping the pistol and turning in alarm, his free hand reaching for the safety catch.

Anne Osterley stood beside him, one eyebrow raised. She must have spoken as she approached.

Aramis put down the gun, his heart racing. He tore off the ear defenders.

"I thought we had a no-fatality directive," Anne said. She gave no sign of recognising her lucky escape from Aramis' reflexes.

She wore silk, again, another plain shift dress, this time in pale green like the furled leaves of a maple. Her hair was up, as always, but different in some way Aramis could not categorise. The scent tonight was Lancome.

"We do," said Aramis.

Anne tilted her head at the five-times punctured target. Each shot was centred in the forehead.

"For the times when the directive does not apply," said Aramis.

"Of course," said Anne. "I imagine there must be exceptions."

"To this as to every rule," said Aramis.

"Shoot again," Anne suggested.

Aramis hesitated.

"Show me how you would use a gun to save a man instead of killing him," she said. She pushed the target button, brushing Aramis' arm.

Aramis was conscious of her close beside him, looking up into his face with concentration. "What do you mean?" His voice had given out. For a man who could speak a woman's name in such a way as to make her swoon, he was having a lot of trouble talking to the boss.

"I mean," said Anne, stretching out her hand towards the dull black pistol and then withdrawing it before her fingers could touch the cool metal, "the permission to carry a weapon comes with the caveat that it will be used primarily in defence, both of the operative and members of the public."

She glanced up at him. Her eyelashes held a smile.

That was the exact wording. Aramis had written the more persuasive sections of the proposal himself. He had a way with words. Usually.

"So demonstrate," she said.

Aramis gazed at her. "Imagine each shot is to a different person," he said slowly, picking up the pistol again. "And put these on."

He handed her a set of ear defenders.

Muffled from each other, without speech or sound, they kept eye contact until Aramis gestured for Anne to stand back. She stepped away, and a waft of Magnifique swirled around him.

He lifted the gun and studied the fresh target. He supposed he should shout the warning that he was going to fire, but she wouldn't hear it and anyway, he was filled with an odd sensation, like the reverse of deja vu, as if everything which he did was fresh and strange and that he would return to these moments over and over in his memories.

Aramis had six shots. If each shot represented a new scenario:

He placed one shot in the knee. One shot in the wrist. One in the ankle, why not? One in the very tip of the shoulder. One just past the ear. And, hesitating, taking far too long to decide on something frivolous, something which was to be passed off as a joke, one shot straight to the heart.

* * *

"Describe it to me," Anne said as the target fluttered towards Aramis' booth. She perched on the table, obliging him to stand back, boxing her into the space with him. "How does this save someone?"

She pointed to the first shot, the knee.

"That's the obvious one," Aramis said. "You drop a man to prevent him being struck by another, more dangerous object or shot. A classic kneecapping to save a head."

"Like tripping someone on a yacht," murmured Anne. Aramis frowned. "To protect them from the boom swinging past."

"Ah." He had never been on a yacht.

"Next. The wrist."

"The wrist. Simple disarmament. -That saves my life, not his."

"I suppose I did not specify which man I wanted you to save," Anne said. "The ankle."

"Throwing someone sideways," Aramis said. "Perhaps out of the path of a speeding train." He shrugged.

"A speeding train?" said Anne. "Rather Hollywood."

"We exist in a world of artifice," said Aramis. "But it is not as glamorous as Hollywood."

"The shoulder, the same thing I suppose. What about the shot that misses? Goes past his ear?"

"Just to get someone's attention, let them know there is danger, give them a chance to escape. I used that on Athos once."

"Quite risky." She was shifting closer to him, leaning in. "Is that how he got his scar?"

Aramis felt a flash of jealousy at Anne's interest in Athos. "No. I don't know how he got his scar."

Anne gave an upwards nod, and Athos was gone. She shuffled a little more on the edge of the table. Any closer and she would be in his lap. Don't think that. "And the last shot?"

They both turned to look at it, and then back. Aramis found he was gazing at the ring Anne wore on her left hand, a wide gold ring set with dozens of tiny diamonds. The kind of thing you could give a woman when you were on two hundred thousand a year, when you could start wars or mothball aircraft carriers.

Anne moved her hand away and ran it through her hair.

Aramis pressed the button to send the target away. "Sometimes that is the only way to save someone," he said, and the paper man, with a burnt hole through his black paper heart, disappeared.

"A person's life is not a joke," Anne said sharply.

"I know," said Aramis.

"It is their whole life," Anne said in a low voice. "Their future. It can't just be given or taken on a whim."

"I know," Aramis said again.

"I don't even know your real name," she whispered.

He opened his mouth, actually opened his mouth to tell her - that was the hold she had over him, that he would do that without thinking - when the door to the shooting gallery swung back and the PM strolled in.

"Anne!" he exclaimed in his trademark jovial, man-of-the-people voice. "What are you doing down here?"

Anne put out her hand, and automatically Aramis helped her slip down from the table. "Seeing how my shoot-not-to-kill policy works in practice," she said. She smiled at Aramis, a big Jolly Well Done You smile, the smile she gave her constituents. "Thank you," she said very courteously.

He bowed his head, her fingers still curled in his palm. He opened his hand and released her.

"Excellent," said the PM. "I'll have to give you a proper department soon if you carry on like this!" He laughed loudly and sauntered out.

Anne followed, but at the door she turned and looked over her shoulder at Aramis with a misery that pierced his heart.

The door banged shut and he held the gun in his hand and loaded again, slow and steady, as if nothing had happened.

But from then on, the sixth shot was as precise and deadly as the rest.

* * *

**Author's Note:**  This is my favourite chapter so far, and I wrote it a long time ago. I'd love to know what you think! -Sef

 


	24. Mixed messages

D'Artagnan yanked sheets off his bed and put them in the washing basket. Then he stopped. Did he really think Constance was going to pop round on a Wednesday like his mum and do his washing for him? Yeah right.

He lifted the laundry basket and as he did, his phone buzzed and made him jump. He dropped the basket, its contents tumbled onto the floor and D'Artagnan caught his foot in a sheet and went down like a newbie in the ring with a prizefighter.

He lay on his back among the linen and looked at his phone.

_He is toying with her_ , said the message.  _Again. He knows Finisterre will be another non-event. But people will get hurt_.

D'Artagnan drew in breath. "Constance!"

She appeared at once, holding a mug of tea. She must have been right out in the hall.

"What's up? Did you fall?" She put the tea on D'Artagnan's bedside table.

He waved her away as he untangled himself from the wreckage of his laundry. "Another message." He held up the phone. "Looks like we don't have to worry about Dog Leap, or any of it, too much."

"Just as well seeing as we've got nothing whatsoever." She had her tablet out and was tapping with jabs and flicks of her nail-bitten fingers. "Get dressed," she said without looking up. "We need to see Athos, now."

"Why? I am dressed."

Constance ignored this as if his ripped jeans and limp T shirt were not real clothes. "This warning against the other warnings just makes the whole thing even less credible. Who's this mysterious he and she when they're at home? And - I've traced the location of the sender."

D'Artagnan looked at her. She spoke matter of factly, as if she had looked up someone's address in the phone book. But phone books didn't exist anymore, and this message sender was beyond ex directory. Constance could do that, and still have spare brain to criticise his dress sense.

"Where is he?" he asked. "Where are the messages coming from?"

Constance hesitated. Then she gave a mouth shrug. "China," she said.

She swept away downstairs.

D'Artagnan lay for a moment, surrounded by linen. China. Macau. Athos' lost brother. It could not be coincidence. Could it?

The scent of Milady, rich and sensuous, drifted to his nostrils from the sheets. But beneath it all, clean and unassuming, was the grassy fragrance of Constance's fabric conditioner.

D'Artagnan breathed it in for a moment, a clean scent, fresh and unassuming. It smelled of honesty, and hope. He frowned, struck by a sudden sorrow, and then shook it off, and clambered to his feet.

* * *

"Constance. Can I talk to you? -Alone," D'Artagnan added over the start of ooohs from the rest of the table. Aramis and Porthos were there, and Constance had joined them, as she had for the last few days. Athos was out, on some unknown business. D'Artagnan suspected he was looking for the mystery woman who had saved him during the Brokenstone attack...and his brother. Well, perhaps D'Artagnan could help with that. But first he needed to talk to Constance.

"What about?" she asked.

"It's...delicate," D'Artagnan said, shooting furious glances at Porthos who was lead whooper.

"All right." Constance grubbed up her assortment of tablet, cables, papers and phones, and hustled out of the canteen and into the corridor. She knew she was blushing. As if D'Artagnan wanted to talk to her about anything but work. Although ... he had been very sweet to her lately.

Tucking her up on the sofa after the midnight row with Kev, for example. She'd told D'Artagnan she had been working late, downstairs, but maybe D'Artagnan wasn't fooled.

And he'd been extra helpful around the house, too - twice she'd come home to find him doing the laundry, and he wouldn't let her lift a finger to help with the wash.

D'Artagnan was handsome as well as agreeable. Fit. He might be a scruffy beggar, but he kept himself nice, physically. Which was more than could be said for some men.

Now he was gazing at her with his big brown eyes, and she was frankly struggling to maintain a neutral face.  _Just do it,_  she thought.  _Kiss me so I can pretend to be outraged. And if you're as good as you look I might not even bother pretending._

"I've got to tell you something," D'Artagnan began once they were alone in the corridor. "About the messages. Well. About my phone. PiP."

Oh. So it was about work. "Get on with it then," she said, as briskly as she could.

"I bumped into my contact again," D'Artagnan said. He shuffled his feet and winced and looked everywhere but at her. "You know. The woman who...stole my phone."

She had lost a lot of sleep lately. It took her a minute. "What woman?"

"Milady," D'Artagnan muttered.

"You saw her? Where?"

Even more squirming. "At home. Your home."

"What?"

Her cry of surprise brought the Musketeers to the canteen door. Constance took a step towards D'Artagnan. "What was she doing there?"

"We were - that is -"

"Oh my God," breathed Constance.

"It's all right," D'Artagnan went on, oblivious. "I got info from her."

"Oh right. That's fine then." Him and that thief. Not him and Constance, not at all. Stupid D'Artagnan, stupid Constance for so much as wishing it.

He was blathering on. "It might help you identify her. I mean, all you've got at the moment is that she's called Milady, but after we, I mean, while she was asleep - anyway, I took a picture of her."

Constance grabbed his phone. There was D'Artagnan's room. Her sheets, her guest bed, her flowery wallpaper. And there, under a sheet but obviously naked, was Milady.

Except Milady wasn't a stranger at all. She was -

"Oh my God," Constance said again, thrusting the phone back at D'Artagnan. "You are unbelievable." She called every last ounce of outrage. No way was this coming over as anything else, not with Porthos and now Aramis standing right there.

"I know I should have asked if I could bring someone over," D'Artagnan said while Porthos and Aramis glowered at him.

"You brought that woman to my house? She's, she's, a security risk!"

"What? No! I thought it would be an opportunity to get more intel off her -"

Constance was paler even than usual. "Did you leave her alone?"

Porthos smirked. Constance rounded on at him and he ducked his head.

"When I went to make a cup of tea," said D'Artagnan.

Constance opened and closed her mouth but no words emerged.

"I'm sorry - " said D'Artagnan, though it was clear he had no clue what he was apologising for. "I didn't know -"

"You didn't think!" Constance said. "Why don't men ever  _think_!" She was shrieking, she knew she was, and if only it was just about the identity of the beautiful woman in D'Artagnan's bed.

"Was anything taken," Porthos asked quietly.

"No," said Constance. "Nothing physical. -but now," and she rounded on D'Artagnan again, "now I'll have to have the house swept. Now I can't trust anything I do or say, even in my own home. D'Artagnan, how could you? In my house!"

She turned furiously away, leaving the three men staring after her.

* * *

"She's not a happy bunny," said Porthos. He'd taken out one of his knives and was inspecting it with a thoughtful thumb.

"I'll go after her," said D'Artagnan. "She looked like she was crying."

"Blimey, you're Sherlock," said Porthos. He shook his head.

Aramis lay his hand on D'Artagnan's arm as D'Artagnan sought to follow Constance.. "Don't. Give her time to regain her composure."

"But she's upset."

"Yes. And do you know why?"

"I brought a dodgy person to the house," D'Artagnan said. "All right! I get it!"

Aramis' eyes gleamed at D'Artagnan. "No. That's not it." He inclined his head and gave D'Artagnan a significant stare.

"You brought a dodgy person round and you took her to bed," Porthos explained.

"Oh," said D'Artagnan. "I didn't think of that." Constance bringing him a cup of tea for no reason. Constance laughing with him as they sliced carrots. Constance hiding grateful tears when all he did was drape a duvet over her. "Oh."

"Which means Constance is absolutely right and therefore your contribution is not required at the moment," said Aramis.

D'Artagnan said, "I never meant to hurt her feelings." Who knew she even had feelings? She was so spiky - But then again, perhaps that made sense too. You couldn't be soft and live with that brute Kev. "Damn. Damn, damn."

"Don't worry, my friend," said Aramis. "You're young and women are a mystery, Constance as much as any. But next time you break her heart, try to be a little more tactful."

* * *

"What's wrong?"

But Anne did not have time to find out why Constance was so pale and drawn. Constance hustled into Anne's office, kicked shut the door and slammed her tablet down on Anne's desk.

The screen showed Constance's writing, and it read,  _Come and talk outside._

"I was just going to stretch my legs," said Anne, standing. "Come and grab a cuppa from the foyer."

In the presumed privacy of the lift, Constance said, "We've been played. And I know who by."

"Dog leap," Anne said, but Constance shook her head.

"It's D'Artagnan's mysterious messenger again. He says he's whistle blowing because things are getting out of hand."

"More out of hand than poison dust, than poisoned water?" Anne had had a permanent headache since Brokenstone. It was not the toxins - she barely got one sniff of them - so much as the humiliation, and the worry that the department's mission might fail. And, she suspected, Aramis.

Constance said, "It's meant to be a series of stunts to show up this department. To ruin you."

"Who wants that?"  _Jim_ , Anne thought immediately, but she shunted the thought aside. "This mystery caller is not a reliable source."

"He gave us Anglezarke and Brokenstone."

"Too little too late." Anne leant on the lift Stop button. She needed to think. Somewhere, distantly, an alarm bell began to ring. "If Dog Leap succeeds, this department is in real trouble. And we're not ready with the mission, Athos still has his part to play."

"We're getting closer," Constance said. "D'Artagnan has got a photo of the woman who tried to get the phone back after he first discovered the messages hidden in PiP. We'll find her."

Anne took a breath, and released the lift. It resumed its descent, clanking. "I'm going to get my office stripped. I'm sick of this hiding and lying," she said. Meeting in lifts, hiding, lying - Aramis. She shook her head, feeling her tightly coiffed hair shift, longing to spring free. "How can we work when everything is so disjointed? No wonder we're failing. If someone is winding us up, we deserve it. And this mystery messenger: we don't even know who he is."

"Well, that's the really funny bit." Constance placed her hand on Anne's arm as the lift jolted downwards. "You mustn't say anything to Athos before Aramis checks it out. But I've been in touch myself, with the messenger. And this bloke says he's Lord Delafere."

 


	25. Tea breaks

 

 

 

"This stuff is just dross!"

The PM shoved the wadge of papers off his lap onto the floor of the limo. They landed at Milady's booted feet. Each sheet was typed, double spaced, and headed: Osterley office, Bug #, and a date and time. It was the sum of her week's work, and now it was a crumpled mess on the carpet.

"Perhaps if you listened live you'd find it more entertaining," she said, lifting her feet aside. She flicked a switch on a small device and lay it on the shelf beside the prime minister's drink. Ice in the scotch clattered. The receiver hissed to itself.

Jim harrumphed. "I tried. All she does is have cups of bloody coffee with that aide of hers, that Constance. It's a miracle we're not brought down by cyber terrorists five times a day." He kicked at the transcripts from Anne's ministerial office. "All that stands between us and defeat is a ragtag bunch of wannabe soldiers."

"Musketeers," said Milady.

Jim sniffed. "Pretentious. Code names. They use those names even in their private lives, you know."

"I know," she said softly.

"I don't like them. I want them out. I want my own people in charge. Not Anne's ... hand-picked toy boys." He stopped, disturbed by the potency of his own insult.

"You have it in your power to close down LOUIS," Milady pointed out.

Jim curled his lip in scorn. "I can't sack my own wife. The scandal. Fixing this is what I hired you for," he said.

He was a buffoon. It was increasingly easy to appreciate Anne's point of view. Milady flung that thought aside, and simpered. "I thought you also wanted me for my other qualities," she said. She eased closer to him on the slippery leather seat. She wore a black coat lined with blood-red scarlet. Very Tragic Widow, with a dab of Willing Whore thrown in.

"Not here, for God's sake," Jim said, but his hand was on her thigh. His plump fingers massaged her flesh through the silk. "You have one more chance," he said. "So far your efforts have been unimpressive. And," an obvious afterthought, "I can't have members of the public put at risk. Not when it might be traced back to me."

She smiled through lowered lashes. "I'm too fond of you to betray you. And you pay too well."

"Maybe," he said as her gloved fingers caressed his own. "But it seems your organisation is leaking like a sieve, and that makes me very uneasy."

"Leaking!" Dammit. He knew. But how? At once her mind began to identify possible traitors. But the most likely suspect had been dealt with long ago.

"You're not my only source of information," Jim said smugly, and Milady had to control the impulse to strike him, to smack him in his over privileged jowls. For this, she had sweet-talked her way out of China? For this she had destroyed the man she loved?

"If there is any breach it will be stopped," she said.

He was fiddling with the small receiver she had given him. "Shut up. I thought I heard something."

The receiver buzzed and fizzled and then a man's voice was heard, low but melodic: "Athos is back, ma'am."

"Aramis," Anne said, and in the limo, Jim wrinkled his nose.

Footsteps. Then, in quite a different tone, Aramis said, "What's wrong? Are you all right?"

Gone was the brusque formality, and in its place... Tenderness.

"Who is this toerag?" demanded Jim.

"One of the Musketeers," Milady said.

"I'm fine," came Anne's voice, but she sounded strained.

"Let me help -" Aramis halted, mid sentence.

"I need coffee," Anne said firmly, sounding nearer, louder.

There was a long pause, and then the sound of the door closing.

"More bloody tea breaks," said Jim.

* * *

Athos strode into the the high-tech foyer where Constance, Anne and the Musketeers were gathered, ignoring polystyrene cups of coffee. Dt was there too, and looking somewhat hangdog.

"What's the rush?" Eve had asked as Athos snatched his shirt from her hotel room floor. "I thought you had the morning off."

"I did. Now I don't."

"Duty first, eh?"

He picked up the keys to the armoured Rolls. Stood hesitating on the threshold, then said, "Yes."

He strode away, and she did not call him back. But that might have been because her phone rang, and she answered, her words fading as the door closed. "Guv. She's on the move? I'll be right there."

Guv. That was odd. And then his own phone rang, Aramis this time, reiterating Constance's call.

Now Athos saw that whatever it was, Anne was badly shaken by it. "We can't talk here," Constance said.

"Your house has the space," Anne said.

"I can't, ma'am," said Constance. "It's been... compromised." She did not look at D'Artagnan as she spoke but he felt colour rising to his cheeks nonetheless.

"Then my place," said Anne. "Athos. Bring the car."

"It's outside." Athos paused. "D'Artagnan should come too."

Anne eyed Athos. "Constance?"

"If he can manage not to do anything stupid for five minutes," she said. From her expression, she held little hope of that. What had D'Artagnan done now?

"I rely on you to prevent that, Constance," said Anne. "Let's go."

* * *

Anne's house was a smarter, plusher version of Constance's, three streets away. Her decor showed a preference for cream, and leather. Through a doorway, Aramis glimpsed a squashy sofa the colour of an evening Alp, and clamped down on mental images of himself and the minister, clasped in its embrace. Now was not the time.

"The kitchen," said Anne, and D'Artagnan noticed that Athos led the way. Constance held her tablet to her chest, a seeming defence against all D'Artagnan's apologetic glances.

D'Artagnan sighed and followed the others into a large and shiny kitchen. He suppressed a whistle. You could put a tv chef in here. Two tv chefs, six competitors, and judges.

Immune to images of a bake-off, Porthos glanced around, approving window locks and door bolts with an expert eye. Athos touched the fine corian work-surface with gloved fingertips and cautious respect.

Aramis remained fixed on Anne as she reached up for a canister of coffee, unstuck the fridge door to retrieve a giant plastic milk bottle, slid open a silent drawer for a teaspoon.

D'Artagnan said, "Is the prime minister at home?"

Anne smiled a little at his youthful directness. "My husband will be at his constituency home. This is my house." Aramis was staring at her. She stared back.

D'Artagnan noticed and cut his eyes at Athos, who shook his head. "Ma'am," Athos said. "Please tell us the news."

Anne relayed the messages received by D'Artagnan, and then the conversations between the messenger and Constance.

"That's not possible," said Athos.

D'Artagnan cast a sideways glance at him. Athos' face was as impassive as ever, but his crossed arms were clenched around his body like a lifejacket.

Aramis picked at his fingernails and watched Anne.

"Give us a clue," said Porthos. "What about Lord Delafere? What makes you all so sure this bloke is having us on?"

Athos turned to his friend with a half smile. "Because I'm Lord Delafare."

There was a pause. Only Porthos seemed surprised. "I always knew you were posh," Porthos said.

"Your brother," said D'Artagnan hesitantly.

Athos shook his head. "My brother is dead. And I was eldest. He was never going to have that title."

Anne said, "Athos' position is part of the plan. Constance and I found him first of all, and the the rest of you." She smiled at Porthos, then Aramis.

"Wait," said D'Artagnan. "I'm lost. So Athos is the earl of wherever. How does that change anything?"

"The antique machinery of this country's government," said Aramis. "How some are raised far above the rest of us." His hand went to the collar of his leather jacket.

"That's not all," Constance said. "We've got hold of a photo of the woman who took D'Artagnan's phone, who started all this. And the minister recognised her." She did not offer to share the picture.

Anne bit the insides of her cheeks. Recognised her! Oh yes. A raven-haired beauty with sparkling green eyes, sprawled in D'Artagnan's bedclothes, luxuriating in sexual triumph: Anne's new friend and would be confidante, Millie.

And it was worse than that, for as soon as she saw Millie's sleeping, catlike smile, she knew, just knew, that Millie had used Anne to meet the PM, and that Jim was constitutionally incapable of meeting Millie without sleeping with her.

Millie was how come Anne's offices were bugged. Millie was how come Millie was so sure Anne had a fascination with certain Musketeers. And since Millie was part of the PiP messages and the terror plots, then it was clear that Jim was too.

She had to speak. Constance was waiting for permission to go on. Anne said, "I believe forces at the very top of government want to disband this department. I believe there is corruption and deceit and the use of agents allied to foreign powers."

"If that's the case," said Constance, "we need to expose the plot-"

"No," said Anne. "I will not be shown up for a fool by - anyone."

"Dog Leap," said Porthos. "We can't just let it go ahead."

"I won't tolerate betrayal," Anne said. "I expect loyalty, I demand loyalty -" She stopped. The fury inside her bubbles up, threatening tears.

Athos gazed at her. "We will do whatever you command," he said. "But -"

Anne went to him and touched his arm. "I would never ask you to place the public in harm's way."

There was a pause. "Can I be blunt?" D'Artagnan asked finally.

"Nothing new there," said Constance.

"Are we talking about the prime minister?" said D'Artagnan.

Athos exclaimed and grabbed D'Artagnan by the arm. But D'Artagnan did not resist, and Athos saw compassion in the boy's dark eyes. He knew, then, what it was to serve a higher power, and what it was to be disappointed. D'Artagnan kept Athos gaze and Athos let his arm go.

Anne lifted her chin and said, "Yes."

D'Artagnan frowned.

"He can't get away with this," Porthos said. "It's not on -" He grimaced, and clenched his fists.

"The PiP messenger sounds keen to help," D'Artagnan said. "We could use that."

"He wanted to get our attention with the Lord Delafere business," Anne said. " And if he knows that that name is significant to our plans, others may know too."

"He might be in danger " said D'Artagnan. "Athos - your brother. Could he still - be alive?"

Athos looked at D'Artagnan. "No," he said shortly. "My brother isn't coming back." Except, he thought, that he was already here, in the shape of this eager youngster, the bright eyed and loyal, if foolish, D'Artagnan.

"We've got nothing on Dog Leap," said Aramis. "If we pretend we don't know who's behind it, if it goes ahead, we'll just be shooting in the dark."

"I've got a couple of ideas where to aim," said Porthos.

"We're trapped," said Constance.

"Damned if we do, damned if we don't," Aramis said.

Anne sighed. Her feet ached. And her head. She kicked off her shoes, and paced the kitchen floor, letting the cool tiles soothe her cramped muscles. If women could only be taken seriously in flat shoes, hard decisions would become far easier.

She caught Aramis' eye. There was one hard decision, right here in her house, dressed in leather and propping himself against her Swedish oak cabinets. He was real and six feet away and pretending not to stare at her bare feet. Anne allowed her gaze to linger a few moments on his face, the fine line of his jaw and the way his hair curled against his neck. And then at least one hard decision was rather simple after all.

She smiled and forced her gaze back to the group. "Constance is right. We must expose Jim."

Aramis straightened up. "He'll humiliate you. -The department. "

"We'll lose everything we've worked for," said Porthos.

Constance blinked several times and wiped her cheek with the heel of her hand.

Athos remained silent. This was for Anne to lead them. His own place at the front of the charge was long over, stolen by his ghost of a wife, grief and drink. Now it was for him to follow, and offer what little service he could.

Unbidden, Eve's voice entered his mind.  _Less of the little. There's nothing wrong with you_. Athos saw her bold eyes, daring him to disagree.

He nodded at his comrades, and they nodded back.

"Then it's decided," said Anne. "Now. Go home. Prepare what you need to. Say goodbye to all this. Tomorrow, it all changes."

"Wait," said D'Artagnan. Everyone turned to him. "We don't need to do that."

He stepped forward. "You have a plan, right? A secret plan known only to you, in case there is a threat to the country?"

Nobody denied it.

"Well," said D'Artagnan, "in that case, I've got an idea."

 


	26. Reverent hesitation

D'Artagnan paced Anne's kitchen, clenching and unclenching his fists. "I have a plan," he said. "Milady and her group want us to be shown in action. For that they need a threat. Well, I'd say there is a threat. A pretty serious one too. I'd say that, some time tomorrow, there's going to be a very definite threat."

He spun on his heel and faced Athos. "Milady used me, and the Minister, to get at our data, and now she's back, cooking up plots with the Prime Minister himself." Aramis flinched, and Anne shook her head at him. D'Artagnan said, "She's assuming we will fail, despite having been tipped off. She's setting us up for a fall, and the messages have become part of that fall. So let's turn the tables. "They've set dates, given deadlines. This gives them plenty of time to create whatever it is they're planning, and find out our own plans. They've bugged our building, right?"

Constance nodded. Aramis turned to Anne in sudden understanding, but her face was set in a professional mask.

D'Artagnan said, "So lets make our own timetable. They aren't expecting us to put anything into place until Dog Leap on Sunday, so let's move today. Let's roll out everything we've got for a full on terrorist attack, a week early. We'll steal their plan, falsify an attack, come out heroes."

Anne blinked.

"Not bad," said Aramis.

"The last vote is tonight," said Athos. "We can't act until after it."

D'Artagnan frowned. "Lord Delafere," he said slowly.

"Sits in the House of Lords," said Constance, coming to stand beside Athos. She smiled at him, and Athos nodded. D'Artagnan experienced a jab of irrational jealousy.

"You're changing the law," he said to Anne. "That's the mission. It's not about protecting the pylons at all."

Anne remained still.

"Classified," said Porthos, with a wink.

"And it is about, as you put it, protecting the pylons," said Anne. "More powers are needed. Autonomy."

"Then we should take them," said D'Artagnan "Declare a national emergency."

"They'll discredit the threat," said Athos. "Milady will expose the messages as fake."

"Then I will expose the PM as her employer," said Anne.

"We'll need help," Porthos said. "More bodies at strategic positions. Just in case."

Anne said, "Then find help. You are uniquely qualified to do so." Porthos nodded. "And take D'Artagnan," she added. "It will keep him out of mischief while I think."

She gazed around at them all. "Are you with me?" she whispered. "Will you do this for me, for our country?"

Athos exchanged glances with Aramis and Porthos. Then abruptly he dropped to one knee on the tiled kitchen floor and took Anne's hand. "We will do whatever you command," he said in a low voice. He put his lips lightly to her knuckles.

Anne bit her lip, then drew him upright. "Thank you," she said. "I will try to deserve such loyalty." Porthos gave an upwards nod of support.

Aramis, when she turned to him, was staring rather hard at Athos. "Go home," Anne said to Constance. "We start as soon as Athos has cast his vote."

"Right, said Constance. She blinked, like someone finally waking from an awful night. So. It's Dog Leap tomorrow," Constance said.

Anne shook her head. "No. It's Finisterre. And we're making our own end of the world."

The others filed out, but at the front door Anne lay her hand on Aramis' shoulder. Porthos glanced back and then continued on, hustling D'Artagnan away down the street. "Not you," Anne said to Aramis.

He raised one eyebrow.

"You stay," Anne said, and closed the front door.

* * *

"I'll check your doors and windows," Aramis said, moving with his usual swift grace toward the lounge.

"No," said Anne. "I'm as safe or as endangered as I have always been." She smiled painfully. "I just wanted ... to stop lying. Stop hiding."

Aramis waited. She wore her private face, her vulnerable face, but the professional one was trying to get out, to cover her up, to protect her. He stood rooted to the spot, desire battling professional duty.

"With you," Anne said, "I can't pretend."

She turned her eyes up to him and it was all the permission Aramis needed. He crossed the space between them in one step, and took her in his arms. He did not waste time with insincere protestations about her husband, her job. "Anne," he said, and kissed her.

She had imagined his kiss would be hard and strong, a soldier's embrace, and it was, but also there was delicacy, tenderness, a reverent hesitation in his caress which made her shiver. She closed her eyes, and in spite of her job, his job, how dangerous she knew him to be, in spite of the fact that he was a stranger, she knew that she was safe at last.


	27. Frozen Milk

"I am a bad person," said Anne. She sat up and hugged the covers around her.

Aramis said nothing, but traced the delicate curve of her spine, a sinuous line.

They were in Anne's cream-coloured bedroom, in Anne's cream-coloured bed. Her whole house was in pale, washed-out shades, like her work clothes. But Aramis knew, now, that there was nothing diluted about her passion. He sprawled, in only his jeans, beside the Minister. Anne propped herself on her side. She wore only a sheet, and looked very fine indeed.

"In the eyes of the world," Anne amended. "I don't feel evil."

"Good." Aramis smiled, and continued to gaze into her eyes, for the sheer luxury of being able to do so.

She sighed. "I suppose cuckolding a prime minister is a first for you?"

"It was not the point of the endeavour." He did not confirm or deny, though.

She sighed, and threw herself back on her pillows. "That's it. Marriage over. You can't be slightly monogamous."

Aramis chuckled. "Don't try too hard to feel the angst. We're here, we should enjoy it." He bent to her, and placed some strategic kisses along her collar bone.

"Jim is going to absolutely flip when he finds out," Anne said.

Aramis frowned.

"Oh, he'll find out," Anne said. "And if he doesn't, I'll tell him."

Again Aramis stayed silent.

"You're very good, aren't you?" said Anne after a pause. "No judgement, no pressure, no attempt to influence me one way or the other."

"I always find it rather pointless to try," said Aramis.

She laughed. "I suppose. I'll keep your name out of it. -What?" He was wincing.

"I am not ashamed," he said. "Name me if you like."

"But then -" Then it would not be thrillingly secret.

"You prefer the clandestine," he said sadly. "I understand."

Anne understood too. "That's not fine, is it? That's not what you want."

"I ask nothing," he said.

"Ok."

There was silence for a while. Outside, London continued, unawares, towards the disaster the other Musketeers were preparing. Birds cheeped. Pigeons cooed. Buses roared past the end of Anne's street. Aramis lay back with his hands behind his head and gazed at the distant ceiling. The room was still, and suddenly flavourless, like frozen milk.

"Are having our first tiff?" Anne asked.

"Yes." He rolled over and kissed her with exaggerated keenness.

"Have we made up?" she asked.

"Again, yes."

"Why?"

"Because I love the way you said, our first. Our first of many. I love that." He kissed her lips cheeks, eyelids, forehead, chin, ears, neck.

"Don't you worry," said Anne. "You and I will have many, many rifts in the future. And lots of making up, too, I hope." She meant it, she realised. She was picturing months and years in bed with this man, needling each other and forgiving the next second. She blinked. Saw him notice it, saw him smirk. "I know," she said. "All right? I know. This whole thing is ridiculous."

"No, it's not," he said softly, smoothing hair away from her forehead. "It's perfect."

She let him kiss her, more seriously this time. "I concede that it is."

"And so?"

"So take your clothes off."

* * *

"Why did you marry him?"

Anne tipped her head back and examined the cream painted ceiling. "I was pregnant," she said after Aramis had given up hope of an answer.

He drew breath in - then ran his palm over her stomach. It was smooth and flat, unmarked. He knew what stretch marks felt like, knew and loved the soft cushioning of a belly which has held a baby. Anne had never been a mother.

"Jim was terrified at how it it would look. That I might go to the press. PM got me up the duff, Bastard Jim's Own Bastard, all that." She swallowed. "So we turned it into a whirlwind romance, a passionate affair, quickie wedding in Italy, leaked to the press of course, everyone breathless with the suddenness of it all and me and Jim gazing into each other's eyes for the cameras."

Aramis recalled an afternoon three years before at a hairdressers, him turning over the _Closed_ sign on the door and staggering with the stylist in his arms to make love by the backwashes. Flung onto the tiled floor beside the girl's head was _Hello_ magazine, and Anne on the cover, radiant in a high-collared mushroom silk coat, her hair studded with sapphires. Her blue eyes held him as he ravished a girl he was already starting to think of as another woman, even before they had finished. Anne was self contained, self controlled, but her eyes sparkled with the promise of passion.

"What about the baby?" he asked softly.

Anne closed her eyes. Breathed in and then opened them. "No," she said and he understood it all. Anne said lightly, "Thank god we were abroad and I had a couple of weeks off."

Aramis said nothing. He and she both knew that a couple of weeks does not fix that.

"If I had waited," she said, "just a few more weeks to tell Jim." She shook her head.

"Divorce," suggested Aramis. He heard himself say it and quaked. He never tried to change the lives of his lovers. Never. If they were in bed with him, that was their business. He made no promises except to love them with undivided concentration until the end of the affair.

"Jim won't hear of it," Anne said. "A sitting PM has never divorced, all that crap. I have to wait until he retires."

"He's forty five."

"I know. -I'm thirty," she said.

"You could be nineteen," he said, quite truthfully. "Your eyes. Your - skin." And other parts, but it was not polite to comment on such things. No one likes to be compared. Or to be reminded of Aramis's rather long list.

"How old are you?" she asked, tangling her fingertips in his beard. Silver threads mingled with black. "I've never even thought about it."

"Oh, I'm getting ever so old. Thirty one."

She pursed her lips. "I can just check your file."

"-Thirty five."

She laughed, rolled over, taking him with her, and pinned him by the shoulders. "Vanity!"

Aramis shifted, demonstrating his inability to escape. "Well, this is interesting."

* * *

"I don't even know your name," she said. Outside, the birds in the plane trees were quieter, and the traffic had eased off from its lunchtime peak. Anne lay in Aramis' arms, content to let her mind empty of all cares, just for this little while.

He was as languid as a cat. "I am Rene," he said. "You only had to ask."

Rene. Quick and sharp, but ending on a soft note. Perfect for him. "Shall I call you Rene?"

"If you like."

She was shy to begin.

He chuckled.

"Rene," she said, and kissed him. "Rene."

His eyes widened. His name, spoken by her - he had never thought about it until this moment. For a second he could not breathe. He tightened his arms around her. She felt the reaction all through his body, heat growing, his breathing picking up. "Say it again."

She just smiled.

"Please."

She leaned in close and put her lips to his ear. He was tense, eager, ready to hear her say it, the name nobody used. "I love you," she whispered, and he was utterly lost.


	28. Angled glass

Porthos shoved the door of The Grapes and it fell back quivering. He stepped into the beery miasma of the so-called Saloon Bar, and a fair number of the clientele gave a similar reaction.

D'Artagnan followed Porthos inside. Porthos had warned him not to speak. The locals were not over-friendly to strangers.

"All right, Porthos," said the girl behind the bar, picking up a pint glass. "What's it gonna be?"

Porthos regarded her affably. "Flea. What's happening?"

"Not bad," she said.

They both looked around.

"Shut your faces, nose aches," said Flea to the crowd who were eyeing Porthos warily. "He's just another punter, right?"

"Right," said Porthos. " I'm just in off the street looking for a quiet pint."

" What'll the boss say?" asked a weasel-faced man by the fruit machines.

" He ain't the boss of me," said Flea. " What are you having, love?"

Porthos leaned on the bar, the studs on his leather jacket rattling against the rail. " A King's Ransom for me cheers." D'Artagnan nodded too.

She pulled the pints, and looked Porthos in the eye all the while the ale frothed into her angled glass. Porthos looked back, and many things were not said.

He had not seen her for a while. It had taken him some time to track them down again, her and him, from Peckham to this green-tiled East End hostelry crouched between a Chinese travel agency and a Polish grocers.

She still looked good. Her pointed face was a little thinner, the cheekbones more pronounced, but her grey eyes were bright upon him, and her dreadlocked blonde hair poured energetically down over her collarbones. She was pinched with pent-up energy, as always, but it suited her face. Aramis had a word for that kind of cute little face on a girl. Elfin. Like an elf. Or a fairy. That suited Flea all right, a fairy of the black market world from which Porthos had escaped and in which she still lived. One day he'd get her out. If she'd come.

" On the house," she muttered, pushing the pint towards him. Beer slopped onto the bar. He and she reached for the nearest beer towel at once, and their fingers met. He flinched away first.

" What's this then?" A lazy voice broke across the room. " Got sick of the posh boys and come back to your own?"

Porthos turned slowly to face the newcomer.

A man sprawled in the corner seat, his coat spread around him like a king's robes. He had short hair and almond eyes, fine cheekbones; the clear skin and solid muscle born of many hours in the boxing ring, but sparring with people who knew not to touch the face.

" Charon ," said Porthos.

" Porthos," said Charon.

Flea said, "Get you another, darling?"

Charon ignored her. " So what is it? Changed your mind about the army?"

"No," said Porthos.

Charon got up, came close and breathed into Porthos face. " I heard you was inside."

Porthos stated at him.

Charon burst out laughing, and clapped arms around him. " Respect, brother!" He rolled up hos sleeve and showed a series of coarse blue tattoos on his forearm. " We've all done our time, man. Respect."

He clicked his fingers, and Flea came round the end of the bar with a drink for Charon, and sat with them. Porthos sat too.

"So what is it?" Charon asked.

"I need a favour," said Porthos.

"I don't do favours, you know that man. Payment, that's what it's about."

"I can pay you," said Porthos. "But it won't be in cash."

"How then?"

D'Artagnan spoke for the first time. "Do you like to download stuff? Music, whatever?"

Charan's eyes lit up.


	29. Rehabilitated

"Right," said Porthos. "Charon's on board for a little anarchy. But we need more help."

They were at Porthos' home, in a modern tower block in Tottenham Hale. Old style concrete blocks of flats were dreary, grey places, but this estate was all lime green and bright range, all white stone and blaring community spirit. Porthos' flat was plain, but large. It was decorated in a manly style, that is to say, not decorated.

"But who else could pull this off?" D'Artagnan asked.

Porthos winked. "Calm down. I'll ask the neighbours."

The neighbours? D'Artagnan followed Porthos outside to the concrete walkway. The flats had front doors which opened onto this promenade, overlooking a grim grassy area.

Porthos beat on the door nearest his own with a lively hail of knocks.

A brawny man opened the door. D'Artagnan saw a face full of metal and many explicit tattoos. "Porthos," said the man on a long note, and smiled, revealing a mixture of teeth black and gold.

"Need some help," said Porthos. "Lady friend got herself in a scrape. Need a few bits and bobs of help with the situation."

"Whatever you ask, Porthos," said the bloke.

"There might be trouble," said Porthos

"I'll bring the persuader," said the man. He glanced at D'Artagnan. "Not that I use it, of course."

"Of course," said Porthos.

The door closed and then opened again. The man was now wearing a denim jacket which dragged down sharply on his left side. He patted it, and winked at Porthos.

D'Artagnan followed in amazement at Porthos knocked up half the block, gathering a positive troop of threatening-looking men. As they headed for the Tube, he muttered to Porthos, "Who are all these people?"

Porthos gestured back at the flats. "Ex prisoners."

D'Artagnan blinked, and saw afresh the building. New, managed by a housing association, a hundred percent occupied by burly single blokes. Of course.

But that meant -

"Rehabilitated," said Porthos firmly, and gave D'Artagnan a look which allowed no further questions.

"Right," said D'Artagnan. He thought about Constance, and how she and Anne picked Musketeers for their connections. Athos was a Lord, which gave them conventional power. But Porthos - Porthos gave them the streets.

Porthos whacked him on the back. "Don't be scared. Most of us have got responsible jobs these days. We're upstanding members of society."

Who can raise a small army when needed, D'Artagnan thought, but kept this to himself.

It was probably nothing the parole officer needed to know.


	30. Beyond capacity

Athos leaned against the left corner of the cab. His eyes scanned the pavements automatically, searching, always searching for the boy he remembered, the stupid, brave brother he lost to a treacherous woman.

London teemed. There were too many faces to scan, too many places an enemy could hide. And with corruption teaching to the very top of government, no outrage was impossible.

"You all right?" asked Constance. She had disregarded Anne's advice to go home, and instead gone with Athos to Westminster. On the way, she dialled into the systems at her house and transferred to them what she needed. At least she knew the place was clean. Thanks to Milady, everything had been recently scoured.

"Yes. It went according to plan. Everything is in place. The minister should already be in the car and en route. " He leaned forward and said to the cabbie, "Paddington, please." As the cab moved away, Athos threw himself back against the seat.

"You seem grumpy, is all."

"And you seem tired, yet you never want to talk about it." Athos turned his head to smile at Constance.

"I'm all right." She raised the tablet in front of her face.

Athos reached out a finger and pulled the tablet away. "If you ever need anything," he began.

"D'Artagnan punched Kev in the bloody face," said Constance.

Athos eyes widened. He did not ask why.

"Kev won't have him back in the house now," Constance said.

"It's your house," said Athos.

Constance bit her lip. "He loves me. And I love him."

"You know I am poorly qualified to talk about love,"said Athos. "But."

Constance was gazing at him in misery.

"It's possible to love someone beyond their capacity to deserve it," said Athos.

Constance stifled a sob. She took the handkerchief Athos offered and wiped her eyes. "You're the best of us, Athos," she said. "I wish I was more like you."

Athos squeezed her hand briefly and let it go. "Never wish that," he said. He leaned forward and tapped on the glass. "We've changed our minds. Camden, please." The cab driver gave a shrug.

Athos humphed. He took his phone out of his trouser pocket and messaged Eve. _I cannot see you tonight. Work. If things go as planned we may never meet again._

He hesitated over the Send button. Eve had brought him life, love, even hope, and he ached, to leave her with none. But it was the truth, and Athos never faltered from the truth.

He added, _I am sorry, but I am certain that once events unfold, you will understand. A_

He had lately taken to adding a kiss at the end of his texts to her, but this time it seemed hypocritical. So he pressed Send and put the phone away.

The cab braked, and pulled up at the kerb beside Baker Street tube. "This isn't Camden," said Athos, leaning forward. "Why have we stopped?"

The driver turned, and Athos faced a bright red smile, long lashes and sparkling green eyes. "Hello my love," she said. "My employer thinks you've been a very naughty boy." To Constance Milady said, "You, glorified librarian, you're no good to me. Get out."


	31. Cutting it fine

Constance ran as she dialled D'Artagnan's number. Baker Street heaved with workers and tourists; taxis and buses jostled in the street as chancers wove a path between them rather than wait for the traffic lights to change. "Pick up, pick up-" Had she left it to late? Milady's cab was already around the corner and heading for Euston Road.

"You're not supposed to call," D'Artagnan said. "It's started. I'm on my way to the location, cutting it fine but I should make it - "

"I need you to track a cab," she said. "Milady's got Athos."

"Shit. Ok. Where are you?"

"Never mind me, where are you?"

"On my way to the Minister's house, on the Tube, just coming up to Baker Street-"

"Get out," she said, breathless, "just get out there. I'm in the street."

* * *

 

He was only just in time. Before D'Artagnan reached the ticket barrier at Baker Street, the lights went out. The white-tiled foyer plunged into noisy darkness, full of stumbling figures and cries of horror. D'Artagnan stopped, tripped over the woman in front of him, jerked her to her feet again, and vaulted over the barrier. "Open up the gates," he yelled at the flustered guards, who were switching on torches. "Let everyone out!"

A hundred feet below him, D'Artagnan knew, trains were squealing to a halt, and carriages were turning dark. Escalators juddered and stopped, and lifted jammed halfway up the shaft. A million commuters, schoolkids, students, mums and babies, were all trapped beneath London's streets. And in a minute, there would be no phone signal either.

He could not help them. He had other work to do. Porthos' team had obviously done well with their tasks. His own was more delicate, and yet also, the sledgehammer they needed to crack open this plot.

D'Artagnan ran outside and there, on the pavement in the twilight, was Constance. "Are you all right?" He grabbed her by the arms.

"I'm fine. Can you track Athos in a cab?"

"Not from here. From your house-"

"We're not supposed to go back there once the protocol starts," Constance said. "Anne's expecting us at the location."

"We can't just leave Athos."

"It's what he'd want," she said, as if Athos were dead and they were discussing his funeral.

"That's not the point, said D'Artagnan. "We're his friends and we save him whether he wants saving or not. Yes?"

He still had hold of her arms. It seemed as if they were talking about more than just Athos. "Yes," said Constance. She looked at his slender brown fingers, curled around her arms, and he flushed and let go.

"Then let's crack on. We'll get the stuff from yours."

"I'm not going back there," said Constance. "Never again."

D'Artagnan stopped. She avoided his gaze.

"We'll get the stuff from the office," said Constance. "It's nearer."

"Are you OK?" he asked softly.

"Just - come on," she said.

As they hurried along, the street lights went out. Traffic lights all turned to red. Then the lights in all the shop windows went off.

"It's started," said Constance.

"Finisterre," said D'Artagnan. Visions of soldiers, Chinese spies, Milady, and PiP floated in front of his eyes. Athos' brother, the plot to discredit Anne, and how D'Artagnan's own technology was being used to spread a terrorist message. And lastly the plan, his plan, to bring Finisterre to Jim, to overthrow the Government and expose its connections to terror. "Oh my god. Are we really doing this?"

"Yes," said Constance. "And if we don't get it right, it might really be the end of the world."


	32. Surface cracks

Constance glanced at the man poised beside her on the park bench. D'Artagnan was intent on his phone, tracking the message being broadcast through PiP. He was checking that it had enough coverage across the UK, before he gave Porthos the go-ahead to take down mobile comms masts. Aramis was en route to the bunker with Anne. Athos was - where? In the clutches of Milady. What did she want with him? Could it damage their plan now?

Constance's head hurt.

She cast her mind back to the morning, Anne's house, and D'Artagnan's fantastic plan.

* * *

"We need to make it look like the actual Finisterre," D'Artagnan siad. "But then we need to make it look like we have uncoverd it ourselves and are handling it as smoothly as humanly possible. And then -"

"-That wasn't enough?" said Porthos.

"-No - then - without it being traceable to this team, without anyone suspecting they have not stumbled upon it themeelves, so that members of the public start ringing up journalists and spreading the amazing scoop they have just discovered - then we need to let everyone know what the PM has done."

Athos leaned on Anne's kitchen counter, leather-clad arms folded. His beard, tamed for his appearance in the Lords, was once again tangled and wild. "How do you propose we do that?" he asked.

D'Artagnan lifted his phone, the shiny new phone he'd bought on the way to work. "We simply tell them."

The message was hard to craft. D'Artagnan cursed and complained out loud that it was hard.

"Of course," said Athos. "However I have some experience in the arts of mass persuasion. Allow me." He held out his hand for D'Artagnan's phone.

"I'm building a timeline for our investigations," said Constance. "I'll upload it when we're done. It will look as if we discovered the plot, not in time to prevent it, but in time to minimise damage and ensure the safety of the nation."

"I'm going to use the picture I took of Milady, to incriminate the Prime Minister," D'Artagnan said. He glanced at Constance. "In bed," he added, wishing he didn't have to be specific.

"Ok," she said. "But I think I can go one better."

"We've nothing to tie it back to the Prime Minister though."

Her lips twitched. "Anne knows his Facebook password."

"The Prime Minister has Facebook?"

"Not publicly," said Constance. "It's how he keeps in touch with all his Etonian buddies."

D'Artagnan was slightly repelled. All those fortysomething old codgers, swapping pictures of their kids and cats.

"There's a secret Facebook," said Constance. "Didn't you know that?"

"I'm still getting over the idea of him typing a status update," said D'Artagnan. "What would it be? 'Gave scripted soundbite to grateful nation. Lol.'"

She rolled her eyes. "Well. Imagine you're him."

"No thanks."

"And imagine you're having a fling with a woman half your age, and pulling the wool over your wife's eyes while you're at it. Would you be able to resist sending your mates a picture of your fancy woman?"

A general silence fell over the room. Aramis and Anne avoided each other's gaze.

"...No," said D'Artagnan.

"My point exactly." She held up her tablet. "Here you go."

"Ugh."

"I know. That's his chest."

"Just take it away. I can never unsee it!"

"Neither will everyone else," said Anne. She nodded at Constance. "Do it. Make the message and broadcast it through PiP while everyone's listening to their music. Let Milady think her allies have betrayed her, let Jim understand that he has been duped, blinded by sex. Brand her the terrorist she is and him the bastard he pretends not to be.' She took a breath. "Send it to everyone."

"Best not to be bitter," said Aramis softly.

"I'm not bitter," she said. "I'm finally getting what I always wanted."

She and Aramis gazed at each other then, until Athos coughed. "It's time."

Anne shook hands with all of them, and wished them good luck. Aramis was last. "I'm to take you safely to the bunker," he said.

She nodded. "The timing must be right though. If we arrive too early, it will appear suspicious."

"Yes," he said, his hand still in hers.

The look he was giving Anne made Constance ache. She was aware of D'Artagnan beside her, equally embarrassed.

"Until later," said Athos, following D'Artagnan and the others out of Anne's front door. But from Aramis and Anne, there was no reply.

* * *

Now Constance and D'Artagnan tried to track Athos' phone. Why would she want him? Why not D'Artagnan, or Anne herself?

Constance thought of Athos' reaction whenever Milady was in discussion. His face when he realised she was the same woman that befriended Anne. -His face when he saw the picture of her in bed with D'Artagnan. He was like a statue, handsome and serene, and then at Milady's name, a crack, fine on the surface, not disturbing his beauty, but deep, deep.

"Oh god," said Constance. "Give me your phone."

D'Artagnan handed it over mildly.

She scrolled to the picture. Then she flicked through files, old, old files, on her tablet. There it was. Athos' recruitment history. The disaster with his brother. China. Of course. China. The terrorist group, the genuine, not fake, threat to the country. "I know why Milady kidnapped Athos."

D'Artagnan blinked as Constance clutched his hand. "Why?"

"She double crossed him. She's Lady Delafere. She's his wife."


	33. Half-thought kiss

 

 

 

Athos and Milady stood on the ornate bridge high over the Thames and watched London's lights go out. Tower Bridge, a Victorian fantasy of a medieval drawbridge, roared with traffic fleeing the city. Bikes and pedestrians darted between jammed up buses and taxis, but Athos stood frozen at the midpoint, where the two halves of the bridge met.

He watched with narrowed eyes the execution of Finisterre. He could end the, stop the chaos as quickly as he had started it. But he made no move. His face was as pale as ever, his expression held its habitual aristocratic disdain. He would not end the power cuts or phone outages, the death of the internet. This was the plan and he would complete the plan, no matter what.

Milady held a pistol to his gut. To the people elbowing past, it probably looked as if she rested her hand playfully on Athos' waist. But the weapon's muzzle was rammed against his leather jacket, and if Milady pulled the trigger, Athos' death would be inevitable, but slow.

"Well," he said. "I have done as you asked. The source of the Finisterre attack is there." He jerked his head towards the northern arch of the Bridge. "We believe the terrorists control room to be inside. But of course you must know the already." It was vital that she believe he was as surprised by thevattack as everyone else. If she suspected what he'd done, what all the musketeers had done -

"How do I know you're not lying?" Milady said. Her voice was harsh, the words strained through gritted teeth.

Athos' mouth twisted. "Don't waste my time. This is your game. Finisterre has begun."

"My contacts say they never started this," Milady said.

"Your contacts must have betrayed you," said Athos carelessly. He glanced at her, then gave a tiny eyebrow shrug, and returned his gaze to the glittering Thames. Spring twilight was deferring panic, for the moment. As the sky grew truly dark, the country's nightmare would begin. "Is Tom still alive?"

He had not meant to ask about his brother, last seen boarding a boat to China in Milady's company - but the words were out before he realised.

She did not flinch. "Call off your LOUIS people, your musketeers, and I'll tell you."

"I am not a traitor." He sighed, resigned. "I have mourned my brother already."

"Your ragtag band of musketeers will never stop us," she said. "This," she waved a black-gloved hand at the dim tower blocks, the emergency lighting glow of the Shard, "will show you up to be the fools you are."

"You underestimate us.'

She laughed, and jabbed him with the gun. "I have never been disappointed."

"What do you want," he asked, weary. He had supposedly done as she asked, and brought her to the start point of the Finisterre attack. He had maintained the falsehood that the musketeers had just uncovered the attack and its source.

Now his part was done. She could end him at any moment with one twitch of her red painted fingernails and the rest of D'Artagnan's plan would still complete. Athos thought of Eve. But the others would explain to her, if they could find her.

"Join me," Milady said now. "What were you thinking, trotting off to vote in the House of Lords? You have no friends there to help your little minister Anne. Your arrogance, your refusal to play Whitehall games, leaves you little support in the house. You cannot hope to influence people in your favour."

"Perhaps tonight I will be lucky," he said lightly, thinking, she does not know our plan. We have won. "I influenced you, once."

"You might again," she said, softening her tone. She lowered her thick dark lashes and looked up at him through them. "I loved you, then. How madly I loved you!"

"Me and my brother," he said acidly.

"That was a ploy," she said, dismissing Tom with a flick of her fingers. "It was only you I loved. You were my one desire."

"Not my title?" he asked. She shifted, to look up into his face. She was still so beautiful.

"Maybe a little," she said, and smiled. For a second she looked vulnerable, as if disarmed into artless honesty. But he knew that she could command her expression to anything she found expedient.

He ought to play for time. The others would need time.

"So," he said. "What is it you love now, Milady? What do you desire?"

Her face remoulded again, to a businesslike smile. "My contacts have a proposal for a new way to rule Britain."

"Would this involve Jim as a puppet premier, and you and China pulling his strings?"

"It could involve you too," she urged, as if the idea were not utterly repugnant.

"You don't need me," he said.

"You have access to all of the UK's infrastructure," she said.

And there it was. The true reason she had come back for him, perhaps the true reason she had sought him out in the first place: not for himself, but for what he knew, who he knew. The lord, the military specialist, the LOUIS operative, the musketeer.

"That is true," he said.

He considered her. Beautiful, clever, and it seemed she still had feelings for him. She had saved his life during Brokenstone. She could have left him to choke in poison dust, but she didn't.

Milady edged closer to him, the gun still thrust against him, her smoky scent even more overpowering than the weapon.

Her green eyes promised him all he once wanted, her beauty in his arms, her wit and intelligence at his side forever.

And of course, she was his wife.

* * *

"Found it," said D'Artagnan. He frowned at his phone, where he'd been trying to trace Athos' kidnapped taxi. "That's weird. I thought she'd take him out of London. To the bunker."

"Ah," said Constance, looking at the map on D'Artagnan's screen. "About that."

"What? Secret bunker, out of the way of the action..."

"It's not that out of the way," said Constance.  She shook her head at the screen, then pointed. "Athos has taken her right to it."

D'Artagnan's mind raced. Athos, bringing Milady where soon they all would be. Oh. "Brilliant," he breathed. "So where is the bunker?" he asked.

Constance grinned. "Underneath Tower Bridge."

* * *

In gridlocked city streets during a power cut, where the only electric light is from the headlights of stationary traffic, it is pointless to try to reach a destination by car. A motorbike might seem like the solution, but they too can be blocked by drivers unhappy that someone else might be making progress.

On foot, then, but the pavements are a crush of anxious people - workers and tourist alike trying to find their way without the aid of the Tube, to somewhere there might be power, and light.

"I feel rather exposed," called Anne, as she nudged her horse across the Euston Road.

Ahead of her, mounted on a skittish bay, Aramis glanced over his shoulder and replied, "You are. I hope you feature in plenty of pictures. Minster Rides To Save Capital. Sounds good, doesn't it?"

Around them the throng parted to allow the horses through. A horse is large and heavy and nobody wants to be stepped on. Also, it gives a marvellous view of the way ahead.

Anne, in cream jodhpurs, brown boots and a buff kidskin jacket, smiled as she passed through the crowd.

"That's Anne Osterley," exclaimed someone, and the first phone was raised for a snap.

Aramis smirked. "Told you."

"T hey won't be able to send it anywhere, "said Anne. She consulted her watch. "Not after...now."

The time had ticked past the moment when Porthos and his work with the power supply was done, and it was over to D'Artagnan to sever the communications networks.

"Now all of us are in the dark," said Anne.

They crossed the road, and entered a cobbled side street of once-smart town houses of the kind that Lizzie Bennet, or Sherlock Holmes might have occupied. Anne saw candles placed on window sills.

"We must trust the plan," said Aramis.

"D'Artagnan's plan," said Anne.

"Your plan," said Aramis. 'We must trust your plan. D'Artagnan has simply found a way to execute it."

"I trust him," said Anne. "His heart is in the right place." She urged her horse forward beside Aramis'. "And I trust you."

The animals jostled each other companionably. Aramis stretched out his gloved hand and took hold of Anne's. "I am yours," he said frankly. "In duty, and in love. And I know, I understand," he swallowed but this was truth and a soldier does not flinch from truth, "that you are in no position to acknowledge me."

She squeezed his fingers. "For you I would leave it all. When our work here is complete, you and I will be together. If you wish."

His heart beat fast. "That is everything I want. I need nothing else."

It was true, she thought. Despite his careful clothes and his exact grooming and his vast array of perfumes, Aramis could live on nothing. Like each of the musketeers, he was self sufficient. "Let's ride," she said. "If we stick to side streets, we can canter."

"Agreed." He released her hand, gave a tiny lip twitch like a half-thought kiss, and urged his horse onwards.


	34. Lights On

 

The key on the chain around Athos' neck opened the small door at the foot of the north tower. He allowed Milady to prod him into the narrow darkness, she waiting outside while he groped for the light switch.

 

As soon as a dim ceiling  lamp came on, she edged inside and pulled the door shut. "Now what."

 

"It is a lift," said Athos, pressing a nearly invisible button with his glove . "Therefore we wait for the lift."

 

"Nothing shakes you," she said bitterly. "Nothing touches you. You're made of marble."

 

"Hardly," he said. He tried not to remember Eve. Beneath his feet, ancient mechanisms whirred and clunked. 

 

He turned his face from her and looked at the wall while the lift groaned towards them. If he was right, then the others would be waiting below, and if he tried to overpower Milady, they would be able to apprehend her. She would probably shoot him before they reached her, but that was all right. He sensed  that tonight, in any case, was the end.

 

"It's taking its sweet time," said Milady, and indeed, the lift appears to be having trouble. Clicks and crashes sounded below, as if the contraption was heaving upwards, then halting, over and over. "What's going on?"

 

"I don't know," said Athos, frowning.

 

His expression, as ever, was serene, but his mind raced. Were the others trapped down in the bunker? Had Porthos' power cuts worked too well? Perhaps Constance had not been able to override access to the bunker...

 

"It's taking too long," said Milady. "I don't like it." She jabbed Athos with the gun. "Out."

 

"I need the key again," he said, when the pistol connected painfully with his gut. "Give me a moment, dammit-"

 

He spent longer than necessary fishing out the chain from beneath his shirt, thinking. Out on the street, he had nothing to offer Milady. His plan to lure her to the bunker where backup was waiting, had succeeded, except that there was no backup, and he couldn't get in.

 

His value to her was at an end.

 

The door opened inwards, and they had to squash against the wall to allow it to open. Again, Milady prompted Athos to emerge in front, keeping the gun at his spine.

 

Athos saw D'Artagnan first, pointing a pistol at him. Constance was there, too, holding her tablet and tapping it over and over - controlling the lift, making sure Athos and Milady would stay up here on the bridge.

 

As Milady exclaimed, Athos saw Anne, at a distance, and besides her,  Aramis, crouched and aiming a slim rifle.

 

Porthos stood to Aramis' left holding something like a club, raised to a crushing position.

 

"Don't dare shoot," said Milady, staying in the doorway. "I have priority here."

 

She showed them the gun, unmistakably close to Athos.

 

"Do it," said Athos. "My purpose here is done."

 

"Shut up," said Constance, and the musketeers lowered their weapons.

 

"Shoot!" cried Athos, but his friends would not.

 

Milady smiled, and came forward. "So," she said. "Now at last I have you where I want you."

 

D'Artagnan glanced at Constance. "We need a surprise," he murmured. "A second would give Athos enough time to duck out of harm's way."

 

"I can try to get the overhead lights on," she muttered, without breaking eye contact with Milady. "How dare she!"

 

"Give me a minute -" D'Artagnan  crouched to place his weapon on the ground. He stood, sarcastically showing Milady his raised hands.

 

She smirked as he retreated, it seemed, to join Aramis.

 

"Don't turn your back on her," said Athos, but D'Artagnan sauntered towards the other musketeers, hands loose at his side, fingers clenching and unclenching.

 

Constance saw Milady's eye drawn to that motion, knew she was wondering what D'Artagnan had up his sleeve...

 

...And she saw D'Artagnan from the corner of her eye as he drew level with her, mouthing to Aramis and Porthos, "Lights On!"

 

Constance flipped the power to _On_.

 

Brightness burst overhead.

 

Milady looked up.

 

Athos dived aside.

 

Aramis, his aim already set before he was dazzled, pulled the trigger, and Milady fell.

 

Milady's gun went off, but D'Artagnan was already crushing Constance to the ground. Porthos grabbed Anne by the waist and whirled her around so his back was towards the danger.

 

Athos spun, smashed his arm into Milady's and grappled with her, catching her as she fell. The gun clattered to the ground.

 

And Aramis calmly opened his eyes and prepared to fire again.

 

Xxx

 

For a moment there was silence, the strangeness of being beneath the only light in a darkened city, the deafness after gunfire. Then Milady shrieked, spitting abuse at Athos and kicking, struggling despite the scarlet trickling from her shoulder.

 

"A shot to save a life," said Anne, emerging from Porthos' shield to stand beside Aramis.

 

His stance did not alter. The weapon remained trained on Milady. "Athos'," he said. "And hers, worthless as it is."

 

"Her gun went off," said Anne,  her heart was racing, now that it was over. 

 

Athos had Milady in his grip. Porthos joined him, smiling grimly.

 

Aramis said to Anne, "Had she aimed at you she would be dead already." He smiled, and Anne saw it, bright in his eyes, the thing she loved: his deadly skill,  mingled with his mercy.

 

"Are you all right?" D'Artagnan said to Constance. 

 

She was hunched over her tablet, breathing heavily, her fingers tracing meaningless patterns on the screen.

 

"Constance!"

 

He reached for her, but she looked up fiercely and said, "Don't fuss."

 

He recoiled. 

 

"I'm busy," she said, turning away. "Resetting everything...putting your story of what happened into place. Send those PiP messages now."

 

"Right." He was talking to the top of her head. "I thought you were hit -"

 

"I'm fine. The shot got the bridge, didn't you hear it?"

 

He hadn't. "Sorry -" He scrambled for his phone, for PiP's  last task.

 

And felt her hand on his arm. "Don't be sorry," she said, then whipped away, back to her tablet.

 

D'Artagnan opened his mouth to smile, then remembered his task. "Right, PiP..."

 

"What will we do with her?" Porthos asked Athos.

 

Athos was checking Milady's wound and ignoring her vile remarks. "I'm not sure. "

 

"You can't do this," she said. "Your precious minister has no authority until the final vote! Yes, I know your little plot -"

 

"Ah but if you did," said Athos, nodding briskly at the shoulder scratch Aramis had inflicted, "then you would have known that the vote was moved to an earlier time. When you kidnapped me, I wasn't on my way to the Lords. I was on my way back."

 

He smiled, his cold smile, all affection gone from his eyes. She had won love from him once, then robbed him of it  wirh her betrayal, punished him with it at the death of his brother... There could be nothing of love in Athos now, and that was her reward.

 

"No," said Milady."You deceived me...you let me think you would join me...you lied."

 

"Yes," said Athos. "And your future now depends on a man who cares nothing if you live or die."

 

He lifted her, prepared to manhandle her towards the others.

 

"Wait!"

 

A woman's voice, clear and authoritative, rang out across the bridge as London's lights came on, blink by blink.

 

And Eve Kirkland stepped out from behind the tower, carrying a white ID badge and a pistol, and said, "Interpol. Nobody move."

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


	35. I'm a Musketeer

 

"You'll have to kill me," said Milady. "Or I will tell the world how close you let me come to opening the door to terrorism. Or maybe not. Perhaps I will just tell a few select interested parties who will be very keen to learn how easy it is to bring down an economy the size of Britain's. You may only be number six in the world, but what a blow to the other five!"

 

She laughed coldly. "So kill me. It's your only option."

 

"Not really," said Eve, stepping forward.

 

"Stay back," said Athos sharply.

 

Eve took no notice. "Milady Delafere, Charlotte Backson, I am arresting you on illegal immigration charges. You do not have to say anything -"  She snapped handcuffs around Milady's wrists before anyone could react.

 

"Eve!" said Athos.

 

Anne said, "Interpol?" She turned wild eyes to Athos, her linchpin, her rock, and then back to Eve.  "You -  you know this woman?"

 

Eve had Milady in a firm, professional grip. "Yes, ma'am. I have been pursuing her for some time."

 

"How do you know her?" This was Athos. His face was white with shock.

 

"I joined Eco Viability to get close to their sponsors. That's how I managed to meet her. It was not chance that you were forbidden to question me after my arrest. I have a warrant which exempts me from investigation." She flashed it and Milady snarled. Aramis stepped in and restrained her.

 

"But," said Athos. He fought for words while his heart pounded. "Milady will evade these charges. She will disappear again."

 

Eve smiled. "Not this time. These charges are just the beginning. I've given my life to this case and I will not lose her now."

The Musketeers gathered around Eve and Milady.

 

Athos stared at Eve. "You seduced me to get to her," he said.

 

"Dear me," remarked Milady. "You do make a habit of being used by the women you love."

 

Aramis jerked her arm sharply and she sat up. But at the word love, Eve's eyes had gone to Athos, and she coloured.

 

"Ah, when work and inclination coincide," said Milady. She stretched, tugging at her bodice. "These cuffs are a little uncomfortable, do you think you could -"

 

She slid a tiny weapon from inside her dress - not a gun, Athos saw, but some kind of steel syringe.  With smooth determination, Milady swung the syringe at Eve's neck.

 

"No!" Athos flung his arm between Milady and Eve, but D'Artagnan was faster. He shoved Athos to the ground, covering him with his own body. The syringe struck D'Artagnan in the neck, spraying yellow fluid over his cheek before Eve crushed Milady's attack in a fierce armlock.

 

A police Land Rover screamed up beside them, headlights glaring. Officers jumped out. "Take her away," said Eve. She crouched beside Athos. "You're not hurt." 

 

He smiled, grunting, pushing D'Artagnan off him. "For once I am glad to live." He turned to D'Artagnan, but someone had got there first.

 

Constance ran to D'Artagnan. Her hair, her tablet, her flip flops went flying. "You stupid, stupid idiot." She checked his neck, but the weapon had no needle, just a syringe. Constance wiped away the fluid with a corner of her top.

 

D'Artagnan couldn't speak. He lay winded by the ground and adrenaline, as Constance's tears fell onto his face. She said, "I can't believe you did did that."

 

"I'm a Musketeer," said D'Artagnan. He glanced at Athos.

 

Athos' lips twitched. It might have a been a smile. He helped D'Artagnan to his feet. "A very foolish one." 

 

"Not necessarily," said Eve. She sniffed the syringe before dropping it into an evidence bag and handing it to one of her men. "Milady just handed us more evidence of her links to terrorists groups."

 

"What was it?" D'Artagnan asked.

 

She shrugged. "No idea. But we'll make it stick. She won't get away with it this time. Oh - by the way-" She reached into her jeans pocket and produced a sleek black object. "I think this is yours."

 

D'Artagnan gasped. "My old phone."

 

"I took it out of Milady's pocket just now. I think you used this to develop something ... important."

 

He grimaced as he flicked through the files on his old, old phone. "Yes. This held all the original code..."

 

"You never got it from me," Eve said clearly, earning D'Artagnan's gratitude forever.

 

Constance scrubbed tears off her face and shook her hair back. She took D'Artagnan's arm in a firm grip. "Come with me. There's something you've got to do."

 

 

 


	36. The certainty of a heart

Tower Bridge blazed. All around, London's light blinked into life, white and colours, seeming more brilliant than ever.

 

Beside the heavy stone balustrade at the centre of the bridge, D'Artagnan gazed at the code for PiP one last time. It was elegant, efficient, useful. It had brought pleasure to thousands of people with streamed music. It had helped solve a political crisis, and distribute vital information during a practical one.

 

It had also been hijacked by a terrorist group for their own evil purposes.

 

Time to say goodbye.

 

He felt Constance's gaze on him as he executed the Destruct package which would rip the heart out of PiP and leave it as a shadow, nothing more than an internet memory.

 

He lifted his arm, and hurled the phone over the rail. The water slapped and churned far below, black and glittering. There was no splash.

 

"Done," he said, and glared at his boots.

 

"Right," said Constance briskly. She raised her hand at Anne, who nodded back. That was the all-clear. Anne could now acknowledge the crisis,  take control under her brand-new powers  and, presumably, form a new government once the media were back online to expose the current Prime Minister's crime.

 

Anne was beside Aramis. She said something to him and he nodded. Then she walked towards the police car which was waiting to take her to meet the Press.

 

D'Artaganan blinked. That was it. No touch, no lingering look, no kiss goodbye.

 

Aramis began putting on his gloves, ready to take charge of the horses again. He did not so much as glance after Anne.

 

Perhaps that was the key, D'Artaganan thought. A level of understanding so deep that touch, or sight  was not needed. Only the certainty of a heart, he thought, surprising himself.

 

He'd somewhat blown that with Constance, and he wished he hadn't. But at least she was speaking to him again.

 

"Well, she's going to be the woman of the hour," said Porthos. He nodded at Anne, climbing into the car, her phone already ringing in her hand. "Better leave her to it. Our part is done."

 

"We may permit ourselves a celebration," said Athos. He clapped Porthos on the shoulder. "I must stay awhile to liaise with the police, but you can all go. You've earned a rest."

 

"A cup of tea and a hot bath, said D'Artaganan , closing his eyes at this blissful thought.

 

"Blimey, you know how to live," said Constance.

 

Porthos was already two steps away, fastening the buttons on his leather jackets cuffs. "Where are you going?" D'Artaganan asked him.

 

"Pub,"  he said.

 

"I might join you," Constance said.

 

Porthos waggled his head. Best not," he said. "I'm.. meeting someone, An old friend."

 

D'Artaganan  raised his eyebrows,  thinking of the dainty barmaid called Flea. "Oho!"

 

"Shut it," said Porthos. He gave the others a nod and strode away.

 

Just like that, D'Artaganan and Constance were alone. She glanced at him. Then she put the tablet in her satchel.

 

"This is all my fault," D'Artaganan said before he could change his mind.

 

She blinked at him, chin tucked in. "Get you. Not sure I'd claim responsibility for a global terrorist group."

 

"No, I mean it. This is all because of PiP. My phone getting hacked, used for their messages..."

 

"Milady..."

 

Ouch. "Yeah. All of it."

 

"The hacking's not your fault. Anyone can get hacked."

 

He shook his head. "Have I told you about my Dad?"

 

"I read it when I researched you,"  she said.

 

"He was kind of like LOUIS. Protect the pylons. A system to message a nation in the event of an emergency. Old-school, though. Like a kind of backup internet."

 

"Yes," said Constance. "I know he died. I'm sorry," she added.

 

"I stole his code," said D'Artaganan. "That's what I used to build PIP." He cracked his knuckles, winced,  and waited for her reaction.

 

She gaped at him.

 

"PiP was mine," he said. "I created it, wrote it. But when my father died,  I found all his old work. And I used some of it in PiP. It made it more powerful, gave it more reach..."

 

"It used the same code as the terrorists were trying to hack to kill our infrastructure," Constance said.

 

He scuffed the ground with the toe of his boot.

 

"Yeah."

 

She thought about it. The terrorists knew PiP, were familiar with its tech, and they used it to spread their messages. PiP was on every phone, in every pocket. It would only have been a matter of time before the real Finisterre - before the terrorists used PiP to switch off the UK for real.

 

D'Artagnan was right. It _was_ all his fault.  But then...it had brought him to the Musketeers, which was plainly where he ought to be. He had solved the crisis. And it had brought him into her life, too.

 

"Forget it," she said. "Water under the bridge. Literally."

 

He brightened.

 

"PiP was clever," she said. "The code was elegant. If a bit amateurish." She smiled, with a bit of her old sarcasm in it too, her protective spikiness because she had been hurt by someone she trusted

 

D'Artagnan knew, then,  in a burst of conviction that he would be her friend, the best friend she ever had. He would make her forget that men could be cruel and bullying and could ever hurt someone they claimed to love. He would show her that men can be decent and kind, can be a friend. He would show her that not every man is looking for the bedroom.

 

"Cat got your tongue," said Constance.

 

"I- " He was not Aramis. Sweet words would not come. "No," he said.

 

"Well then," she said. She cocked her head up at him. "Thought you were going to say something."

 

"I just wanted -" He caught hold of her hand. "I want you to know that I will never let you down, I know you're still hurt and I would never try  - anything - "

 

Constance pulled him to her and, standing in tiptoe, kissed his cheek. Then, with a what the hell shrug  she hung her arms around his neck and kissed his mouth. 

 

D'Artagnan stood frozen, afraid to clasp her, kiss her back, ruin the beautiful touch of her lips on his.

 

She drew back and considered him critically. 

 

"I'm sorry," said D'Artagnan, though he could not have said what for. 

 

She laughed and hefted her bag over her shoulder. "Just don't get cocky." 

 

D'Artagnan, for once,  could think of nothing to say.

 

"Well," said Constance. "It's three miles home, we'd best start walking."

 

 

***

 

"How did you find me?" asked Athos.

 

Eve strode up and down beside the northern tower, radio in hand, half listening to updates from her people. "I bugged you," she said. "Put a tracker in that key fob, the one with the Roll Royce logo on it. I love that, by the way. Very aspirational."

 

Athos smiled. "Not really. My car is a Rolls Royce."

 

She stopped,  the radio dangling from her fingers. "You're kidding."

 

"No."

 

He studied her. He could see it now, the confident bearing, the no-nonsense practicality. Of course she was police. But to him, she was so much more. "I should probably mention," he said, "that I am a peer of the realm."

 

Her mouth opened.

 

"Although I am known as Athos, my name is Delafere."

 

"Lord Delafere," she said. She smacked her forehead. "Of course! You went off to Parliament that night. A late vote in the House."

 

He inclined his head. "It was the last vote which would give the Minister emergency powers,  in the right circumstances. We were careful that it should not be a single Act of Parliament that granted the power, for the Prime Minister would never allow it. But combined,  the detail of many laws gives the minister in charge of LOUIS the right to make national decisions." He gazed over Eve's shoulder, at the city, its lights blooming back to life among the blocks and cranes. "I believe her first decision will be to remove the PM, as his authority has been compromised." He drew his gaze back to Eve's astonished face, and gave a slight smile. 

 

Eve shook her head. "A coup. You've bloody well pulled off a coup." She rubbed her hand over her face. Athos stood still, waiting calmly for her next words. She drew a long breath, looking at him. 

 

Someone who did not know him might think him remote, and cold. But she knew he was right there with her. There was a smile in his eyes, and tenderness in his touch, fidelity in his quiet stillness. Oh yes, he ran deep, this one. He was silent and still and roaring wild too, marble and leather, cool gunmetal and the warm soft hairs around his jaw... She let out the breath. "Anything else I should know? Now that my cover is blown, we might as well have full disclosure."

 

"I like you very much,"  said Athos. He took the radio from her and dropped it on the ground. It lay, squeaking helplessly, as he clasped her hands. "I think... that's all."

 

Eve gazed at him. "You were a tough one," she said. "None of us knew how to get close to you. You followed every protocol, you had no social life, no interests outside LOUIS. The only person who ever got near you was Her, and it was pretty obvious you weren't looking for more of that. But I suggested it anyway. I still can't believe it... worked." She grimaced. "Sleeping with you was not in the plan. I swear. That's not how we operate. I was meant to chat you up, that's all. Make friends."

 

"I hope it was not too arduous," said Athos. He stepped close to her, their hips touching.

 

"No,"  said Eve. She slipped free one hand and stroked his jaw. "And you're not just a job. OK?"

 

She was so aggressive, he thought. Hard on the outside, but under the bravado, the flat Northern speech and the tough officers jaw, was tenderness, and a little insecurity. Lke his own. He smiled.

 

"OK?" she repeated, and now there was a waver in her voice.

 

He did not reply, but caught her hand and held it against his cheek. He breathed in, feeling life and hope bubbling under her touch. Beyond was duty, LOUIS, Anne, and the Musketeers, pretending not to watch. But here was Eve, and, he was certain, his future. Yes - he had a future. His life was not over, not empty, not hollow at all. He chuckled in surprise, and kissed her.

 

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

 

THE END

 

 

 

 

 

 

\-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- 

 

Thanks so much to everyone who's followed this story for three years and who's left lovely comments. Also to those who have harassed me in the nicest way to write more chapters and actually finish the thing.  I've been busy writing original fic all this time, some of which you can find by googling sef churchill. I hope to have more news on that front soon, in book form! Fingers crossed, anyway.If you would like to know when Book Things Happen, please follow my blog.

 

I still write occasional fanfics - they are my not-remotely-guilty pleasure. So there may be more Musketeers. And next time it won't take me three years to finish. 

 

:-)

 

Thanks again,

-Sef

 


End file.
